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E 721 
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Copy 1 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



SPEECH 


OF 






/ 


IHN C. 


SP 


OF WISCONSIN, 


IN THE 





SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 



FRIDAY, APRIL IS, 1898. 



WASHINOTON. 

1898. 






s. 









assso 



srEEcn 

OF 

HON. JOHN C. SPOONER^: 



The Senate having under consideration the joint resolution (S. R. U9) for 
the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba, demanding that 
the Government of 8pain relinquish its authority and government m tlie 
Island of Cuba, and to withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and 
Cuban waters, and directing the President of the United States to use the 
land and naval forces of the Ignited States to carry these resolutions into 
effect, reported by Mr. Davis from the Committee on Foreign Relations, aa 
follows: 

"First. That the people of the Island of Cuba are and of right ought to b» 
free and independent. 

'•Second. That it is the duty of the United States to demand, and the Gov- 
ernment of the United States does hereby demand, that the Government of 
Spain at once relinquish its authority and government in the Island of Cuba 
and withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters. 

"Third. That the President of the United States be. and he hereby is, di- 
rected and empowered to use the entire land and naval forces of the United 
States, and to call into the actual service of the United States the militia of 
the several States, to such extent as may be necessary to carry these resolu- 
tions into effect"— 

Mr. SPOONER said: 

Mr. President: I shall not attempt to disguise the fact that 
I sincerely deprecate this debate. I lament the difference in opin- 
ion among us which has given rise to it. Without intending un- 
duly to criticise any Senator, I deplore the spirit of some of the 
utterances to which we have listened to-day. Wc are, as the Sen- 
ator from Colorado [Mr.WoLCOTTJ said, at the thre.shold of war. 
He is a very sanguine man who thinks he can discover any escape 
from it. Carping and criticism and fault-finding with the Presi- 
dent, the commander who, under the Constitution, is to lead us, is 
an ugly and unfit prelude to the roar of cannon, the rattle of 
musketry, the roll of war drums, and the groans of the wounded 
and dying. He has borne himself noblj- in his high oftice. 

The suggestion of want of sincerity upon his i)art, or an attempt 
to belittle his diplomacy would, if effective, lessen the confidence of 
our people in him and diminish his influence with foreign nations 
during the conflict upon which we reluctantly enter. If we must 
go into war, as seems inevitable, he is, by choice of the American 
people, our leader, sworn to his duty, able and willing to dis- 
charge it, and, as patriotic citizens, we are to rally around him, 
strengthen his arms, cooperate with his efforts; and, if there be 
aught in him, now or hereafter, which either a fair or an unfair 
man could critici.se. let us wait until after the battle. From this 
time on to the end let us rather say to him, " God bless and guide 
you. Lead on; Ave follow."' 

I do not stop to make reply to the suggestion that his failure to 
recognize belligerency a year ago, or since, has been due to the 
influence of Spanish bondholders upon the American Government. 
3:.'r:5 3 



I know notbin;? of such bondholders. I know however, and so does 
the Senate, and so do the people of the United States, and so does 
the world, unless the suspicion uttered here yesterday and to-day 
finds lodgment somewhere over the sea, that there is no man liv- 
ing less capable of being influenced by bondholders against liberty 
than the present President of the United States. 

Under our Constitution he is charged with the duty of conduct- 
ing our foreign relations and our intercourse with foreign govern- 
ments. He can not take the world into partnership in conducting 
negotiations with other governments. Publicity is fatal to delicate 
ami difhcult international negotiations. Business men keep their 
own business secrets. Much more so must governments. 

I have felt that the President should have all the time he re- 
quired, and not only time, Mr. President, but patience, in the Con- 
gress and among the people, to enable him to conduct to the end 
the diplomatic negotiations with Spain— a people proud, sensitive, 
and i)aasionato. 

I liad the honor to state a year ago in a short address here my 
belief that the people of the United States desired the independence 
of Cuba and my own earnest wish for this consummation. I have 
never in any wise abated my opinion that this must come, or my 
hope that it should come, but I have, with painful earnestness, 
desired that the President be permitted to exhaust every possible 
resource and art of diplomacy before resort to the alternative of 
war. 

I confess I have regretted some of the utterances which from 
time to time have been made in the Senate — bold, generous, and 
worth}', as in spirit most of them were. I have regretted them 
because I felt they might embarrass the President in delicate and 
difficult negotiations with a peculiar people. I have regretted 
them because I knew that if they could by any possibility result in 
a rupture of diplomatic intercourse and jirecipitate war we would 
be found unready. I have deprecated them in the Senate for 
another reason, that under our form of government this body 
sustains a i)ecu]iar relation to the President in the matter of for- 
eign relations. He has the right, in stress, to come into this Cham- 
ber, to ask us to close our doors to the world, and permit him to 
take this body into his confidence, and to invoke its advice. This 
has been done once in a crisis since the Government was founded. 
And therefore it has seemed to me that here, of all places, he 
should be free from criticism and the embarrassment of either 
sensational or condemnatory speech. 

The President needs no defense from me. He has conducted the 
negotiations. I do not know what the correspondence is. I have 
the best of reason, however, to believe that his failure to transmit 
it was due to reasons which would commend themselves to every 
thoiightful person in this country. 

It is not easy to conceive a more diflficult and burdensome duty 
than has under the Constitution rested upon him. Ho has been 
obliged to so conduct this negotiation as not only to satisfy his own 
great constituency, if possible, but with a view to commend this 
Government to the enlightened sentiment of the goveniing pow- 
ers of the world. He has traveled, of necessity, the path of diplo- 
macy alone, and I can well imagine it has been a long and weari- 
some journey. He has felt the pressure of pu])lic opinion here, 
stirred to its depths. It is to the eternal glory of our people, how- 
ever, that, notwithstanding horrors unspeakable, they have main- 

3273 



taiued an attitiule of dip^nity and calm, awaitini? with intense feel- 
inp:, but with wonderful patience, the inarch of events. 

The President has seen some old friends seem to fall away from 
him. He has lieard the voice of criticism. Doubtless he has 
been stung by the tongue of slander. I do not know, for I have 
heard no word from him. I do know that, as an American Presi- 
dent should, he has gone along the pathway calm, patient, intrepid 
to the end. There is not to-day in any court of Europe, so far as 
I know, excej^t the Spanish court, a statesman or a great newspa- 
per who or which has not applauded his liriiniess. his discretion, 
and the dignity of his demeanor in the midst of domestic excite- 
ment and Congressional impatience. This good opinion of our 
President is worth much to our people. Some may in the rush and 
whirl of excitement in our own land forget — but we here have no 
right to forget — that it is of the utmost consequence that our case 
shall seem strong and clear and humane and unimpeachable to 
those governments of the world whose good opinion we invoke 
and whose sympathies we may well desire, because when war 
once begins, God alone can tell when it will end or who before it 
ends shall become participants in it. I have, as an American 
Senator, taken pride in the fact that those showering praise upon 
the President were but a little time ago bitterly prejudiced against 
him because of his economic theories, v/hich they antagonize. 

The President has been criticised for the tone of his message in 
regard to the 3/(f/»('. It has been said that it was cold and pas- 
sionless. The Chief Executive of 70,000,000 people, conducting a 
case almost inevitably leading to war, must be passionless, must 
be calm. If he be not so in the surging tide of popular iwission, 
what, then, is to become of a government by the people? 

I approved when that message was read here, and I approve now, 
its si)irit, its tone, and its language. The President was not called 
upon to denounce the Spanish Government as guilty of participa- 
tion in the exjilosion of the Maine. It would have been the height 
of unwisdom. He could, and a rash man would have so done, 
have sent a message to Congress which would have broken off in a 
moment diplomatic relations and plunged this country into war. 
Were we ready? No, Mr. President! He knew then, we know 
now. and the people know now, that we were not ready. It was 
the President's duty to be calm and patient, even to temporize, 
that we might become prepared for war, and every hour prepara- 
tions have gone forward under his direction. 

The President has. too, been criticised for delaying his message 
from Thursday until Monday, and it has been intimated in the 
Congress that it was an artifice, a piece of diplomacy to gain 
time. The President in this did wisely; did only his duty. The 
dispatches from General Lee— some of which 1 have seen, all 
of which were seen by the chairman of the Committee on Foreign 
Relations— rendered it impossible, in the interest of human life, 
including the life of that chivalric representative of this Govern- 
ment, that the message should be communicated to the world until 
the American citizens in Cuba who desired to come home were 
safely out of that country. 

There is not a member of this Senate, there is not a manly man 
in the United States, who, had he been President, would not have 
withheld that message even had he known that failure to trans- 
mit it would lead Congress in its impatience to pass unanimously 
a declaration of war. It is an awful responsibility, that which 



6 

has been upon the President; infinitely more than the responsi- 
bility which rests upon us, because the responsibility here is di- 
vided. We may say what we please; we may utter the views 
which commend themselves to our judgment, but we know that 
in the end the majority of the Senate determines the action of the 
body. We may win the plaudits of the people by patriotic utter- 
ances; we may defend ourselves on the floor of the Senate. The 
President can not. He is answerable to a greater constituency. 
He is answerable to the civilized world. 

I have been pained by some criticisms made to-day upon the 
message of the President. It has been argued that he is committed 
in his message to the proposition that an army carrj-ing the flag 
of the United States shall go over to the Island of Cuba, plant that 
flag upon the grave of Maceo, and train its guns on Gomez. That 
is an impossibility. The flag of the United States has never floated 
above any army in my day except an army of freedom. "William 
McKinlcy, the President of the United States, could not and would 
not send forth an army upon such a mission, and all fair men 
know it and acknowledge it. 

While one of the gentlemen who has seen fit to belittle his diplo- 
macy and to criticise him in a strong, stera, and bitter way was 
a boy of 11 or lO years, living in peace, with opportunity for edu- 
cation, he who is now President had abandoned the schoolroom 
and was marching and fighting under our flag where the bullets 
of an enemy were "weaving the air about him with lines of death 
and danger;" and never from that day to this has he uttered a 
thought which was not in vindication and appreciation of human 
liberty. Never from that day to this, Mr. President, has he done 
an act which could be imputed to a mercenary motive. 

We are not called upon here to enact the President s message. I 
shall not attempt to vindicate every sentence in it. I have never 
yet rea'l an elaborate document every portion of which commended 
itself absolutely to my judgment. 

But I repudiate, not from anything he has said to me, but 
from the life he has led in public and in private; I repudiate 
because of his utterances from the beginning, the notion that his 
language was intended to be construed as contemplating an array 
of occupation under the American flag to helpenslave further under 
the banner of Spain the people of Cuba. That is an absurdity. 
The man does not live who can more strongly demonstrate the 
absohate impossibility of continued Spanish government in Cuba 
than the President has done by his message. His recommendation, 
I think, has been grossly misconstrued. The argument which has 
been made upon it is the sort of argument which would "rail the 
Beal from off the bond." 

I am bound to assume that such utterances had no partisan pur- 
pose. I will not think that they could be born out of purpose to 
subserve a party interest. The message must be read as a whole, 
and not in the light of some single sentence in it. If our armies 
should occupy Cuba, if the Spaniards should bo expelled, as the 
Spaniards must and will be expelled from Cuba, and Gomez 
should not be able to restrain those who follow his standard — 
for in them, remember, is the hot blood of the Spanish people, al- 
though they are themselves struggling to be free from Spain— if 
he should find himself unable to i)rotect the women of that island 
from lust, and to jirotect men in their property and in their lives, 
it would bo the duty, as it would be the right, of the Government 
of the United States to lay a repressive hand upon his forces and 
a.'73 



to preserve peace. That the President of the United States could 
do more than that, or that an army under onr tiaa; could do more 
than that in Cuba, no man can for one moment believe. The 
President says: 

In view of these facts and of these considerations, I ask the Consi'ess to 
authorize and empower the President — 

Of course he could not say " direct the President." lam not 
here to-day to employ any technical argument: but 1 have little 
doubt that we have no power to "direct"' the President. This is 
a Government of three great coordinate dcjiartments, each inde- 
pendent and supreme within its sphere. If anything is .settled 
imder our Constitution as to this Government, that is settled. 
Congress can not constrain the courts; Congress and the Presi- 
dent together can not dictate to the .iudiciary. 

The President can not "direct"' Congress. I do not believe, as 
a matter of law, Congress can "direct" the President. He is not 
our servant; we are not his master. Congress can pass a law; 
Congress can lay down " a rule of action,' and then the President 
is bound to execute it. He is bound by a higher obligation than 
any verbal " direction" by Congress. He is bound by his oath of 
otlice, an oath registered in heaven, to support the Constitution, 
which says "he .shall take care that the laws be faithfully exe- 
cuted." Congress may declare war. That is the power of Con- 
gress; but war being declared, it is to be conducted by the Presi- 
dent, not because we say so, but because the Constitution says so. 
He is Commander in Chief. It is not to be believed that the time 
will ever come when there will be in any exigency which involves 
the honor of this country or the vindication of our flag a want 
of cooperation between the Congress and the Executive. His rec- 
ommendation is: 

I ask the Congress to antboiize and empower the President to take meas- 
ures to secure a full and final termination of hostilities between the Govern- 
ment of Spain and the people of Cuba, and to secure— 

Not to "establish."' I like the word "secure"' better than the 
word "establish," because under the word " secure " the present 
so-called government of Cuba, if the facts shall hereafter justify 
it, might be recognized — 

in the island the establishment of a stable government, capable of maintain 
ing order and observing its international obligations. 

That can mean, as argued by the Senator from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Lodge] the other day, only an independent government in 
Cuba. Canada has no "international" obligations. Australia 
has no "international" obligations. No colony or dependency 
can have any international obligations. That phrase can refer 
only to treaty obligations — to obligations growing oi;t of conven- 
tions between independent governments. Bonds issued by gov- 
ernments are not "international" obligations. 

Certainly, as the Senator from Massachusetts reminds me — and 
I thought i had expressed it — a government "in the island" with 
"international obligations" can not lie the government of Spain. 
It is impossible, fairly reading the language, keeping the heart 
free from bitterness and the mind free from suspicion, by which 
the President invokes Congres:sional action, to construe it in more 
than one way, and that is the way in which I have .iust read it, 
as involving the establishment of an independent government in 
Cuba. 

If a perusal by the President of some of the criticisms uttered 
here to-day give him pain, he may well remember with comfort 



8 

that such criticisms, painful as they maj' be, are not new in the his- 
tory of this country. They were harsher when directed against 
George Washington because he insisted on maintaining the neu- 
trality between Great Britain and France. It is the same harsh 
criticism. Mr. President, which wounded the tender heart of Abra- 
ham Lincoln; the same hostile spirit which filled with thorns his 
pathway. It is the same harsh note which, during the years of 
General Grants Administration, when there was an insurrection 
in Cuba attended by frightful atrocity, was sounded in his ear be- 
cause be would not recognize belligerency or independence. No; 
the President may well be content that he has done all that he 
could do to avert war. Thoughtful men thank him for it now. 
All will be grateful to him for it hereafter. 

I agree with the Senator from Colorado [Ivlr. Wolcott] in 
rejtrobation of the utterance which once or twice has been made 
in the Senate, that this country needs war to rekindle a decaying 
spirit of nationality, to bring again into life the spirit of manli- 
ness, the love of liberty. We are not so very fai' removed from 
war. There is hardly a man on the other side of the Chamber 
who does not remember with a shudder the roar of cannon, the 
mad, impetuous charge, the rush and whirl of battle. Twenty- 
two such men, I am told, are in this Chamber. 

It may seem a long time to us, but it is only a day in the life 
of a nation. With a pension list of $140,000,000 a year, hundreds 
of thousands of wounded soldiers North and South, all about 
us, numberless homes still desolate, numberless hearts still aching, 
and the waste of that beautiful Southern land not yet repaired, 
we need no new object lesson in war to rekindle the mili- 
tary spirit of our people. No, sir; and the people of the United 
States, when this history shall have been written, when they deal 
not with the present, but with the retrospect, will thank President 
JlcKinley that, before the last "argument" came, he did all he 
could in the midst of passion to maintain peace with honor. 
Moreover, the war of which we knew was, I fear, little like war 
of to-day, with the death-dealing instrumentalities of this invent- 
ive civilization. War is terrible in its every aspect. I wish the 
cup might pass, without dishonor, untasted, from our lips. 

Mr. President, I wish with all mj' heart that we might have 
been able to agree upon a resolution for which as one man we 
could have voted, but we could not. I find fault with no man 
that it is so. 

I do not like, I am fi-ank to say, the resolution reported by the 
Committee on Foreign Relations. 1 have the utmost confidence 
in its members and the in-ofoundest respect for their ability, but 
the resolution to me, as a declaration upon which we are to go into 
war, is illogical, inconsistent, and untenable, and I say that fully 
conscious of the fact that we are going to war, and that one of its 
results will be to make Cuba free. It is thus: 

First. Tliat the people of the laland of Cuba are, and of right ought to be, 
free and iiidopeudeut. 

That the people of Ciiba ought to be free and independent, I cer- 
tainly afhrni. That the people of Cuba are free and independent, I 
do not know. I wish I knew that to be true. I think I know that if 
it were Lfue we would not to-day be facing war or debating upon 
the mt'Hiods in which it shall be commenced, to viake that people 
free. 11 the pt ople of Cuba are free and independent, whj' are we 
to go there? What should perplex us about them? 
3iT3 



9 

Another clause of the resolution reads: 

Second. That it is the duty of the United States to demand- 
It is the duty of the United States to demand— to demand of 
whom? Of Spain of course. Kemember this is to be a hiw, to be 
put upon tlie statute book — and what sort of a kiw is it? To d»- 
mand of Spain what? — 

And the Government of the United States does hereby demand that tlie 
Government of Spain at onro roliiKHiish its authority and fj'^)vernm»iit in 
the Island of Cuba and withdraw its laud and uuvai forces from Cuba uud 
Cuban waters. 

If the people of Cuba are free and independent — and that is a 
mere legislative assertion of fact — what " authority and govern- 
ment" can Spain have in the Island of Cuba? 

Mr. GRAY, We make a demand and wait for an answer. 

Mr. SPOONER. The resolution says: 

At once relinquish its authority and government in the Lsland of Cuba. 

Is that in any wise consistent? I care nothing for the mere 
language of it, but this is a momentous paper which we are to 
"enact." It is to go into history; it is the guide of the President; 
it is our justification before the world in a legislative way; and tff 
say that the people of Cuba are in fact "free and independent," 
and at the same time to declarewthat Spain has "authority and 
government " there, seems to me utterly inconsistent. The two 
statements, like Kilkenny cats, put side by side, eat each other up. 

Mr. MORGAN. Will the Senator from Wisconsin allow me to 
interrupt him for a second? 

Mr. SPOONER. I will, certainly. 

Mr. MORGAN. I understand that declaration to be not a his- 
torical declaration of the existing facts or situation, but it is a high 
political decree, such a decree, for instance, as we put in our party 
platforms — a basis of political action, not as something already 
accomplishea, but something that is to be accomplished — that 
being their right, that being the ground of their unification in 
achieving and accomplishing that light. That is the way I under- 
stand it. 

If the Senator will allow me further, that, of course, is copied 
from our own Declaration of Independence. 

Mr. SPOONER. Certainly. 

Mr. MORGAN. And our Declaration of Independence was 
made at a time when historically we were neither free nor inde- 
pendent. 

Mr. SPOONER. Yes. 

Mr. MORGAN. And yet the declaration was good as a high 
political decree or enunciation on our part. Now the question is 
asked, Why do we undertake here to extend that declaration and 
make it apply to Cuba? There is but one reason for it in the 
world, and that is that the Cuban Republic has made the same 
declaration, and we concur in it. 

Mr. SPOONER. There is a very broad difference between our 
declaration that we are free and our declaration that somebody 
else is free. You may adopt a platform of principles to govern 
you, but you can not adopt one to govern me. This is a declara- 
tion of fact as to a third party. It is a declaration that the people 
of Cuba are in fact free and independent, is it not? 

Mr. MORGAN. No; and 1 am satisfied the committee did not 
BO mean it. The committee did not intend to tell a broad, historical 
falsehood in the presence of the world. 

3273 



10 

Mr. SPOONER. I am like the Senator from Vir;?inia [Mr. 
DanielI in one respect, and I wish I were like him in some 
others— in this, that I only understand one kind of. Engli.^h lan- 
guage. When the committee assert ' • that the people of the Island 
cf Cuba are. and of right ought to he, free and independent,' I 
©appose tlio rommittee mean it. 

Air. M(JK(;AN. If the Senator will allow me, I suppose our 
fatliers in the convention which declared our independence meant 
it also in the same sense. The fact was, we were not free and In- 
dei)eiulent, and j-et we declared we were. 

Mr. SPCJOIS'ER. There it was a declaration of their own inde- 
pendence; it was an enunciation of a high purpose by a people 
to be free. I can understand how the so-called Republic of Cuba 
can declare in their constitution '* that we are free and independ- 
ent of the Government of Spain:" but it is an entirely different 
proposition for the Congress of the United States, which ordina- 
rily does not deal in mere declarations of fact, biit deals in legisla- 
tion, to solemnly enact as a fact what a great many of us do not 
believe to be a fact, and what the Senator himself admits is not 
a fact. When you say " of right ought to be free and independ- 
ent," that is true. 

Mr. GALLINGER. Will the ^enator allow me to make a sug- 
gestion? 

Mr. SPOONER. The only reason I dislike to be interrupted is 
that thereby I am compelled to take more time than I wish. 

Mr. GALLINGER. It is on this very point. What does the 
Declaration of Independence mean when it says " that all men 
are created equal?"' Is not that simply a declaration of an in- 
lierent or inalienable right? 

Mr. SPOONER. That is an abstraction. That means that all 
men ought to be free and independent in fact, but it does not 
mean that all men are in fact free and independent. If it meant 
that, it would be false. Since that declaration rivers of precious 
blood have been shed to make men free and equal in our own 
land. You liave translated that dcclai-ation here when you say 
that "the people of Ciiba of right ought to be free and independ- 
ent,"' and we all agree to that. This is not a party lilatform. 
This is a legislative act. upon which is to be based war, and I wish 
it to be true in fact. You are asking Congress to vote here as a 
fact that the people of Cuba are free and independent. You 
might say the same thing of the Armenians. Yoii might say the 
same thing of any people on the earth, however enslaved they 
may be, however miserable they may be if it only means that 
they assert it. 

Mr. GALLINtiER. We assert it for them. 

Mr. SPOONER. Wc are asserting here for ourselves that they 
are free and we are asserting here that they ought to be free and 
indei)endent. Have they asked us to assert it for them that they are 
free? It looks to me to be a call upon the Congress to assert as a 
fact what is not the fact, and if it be a fact— and that is what 
troubles me— if they are in fact free and independent, if Gome/, 
and Ills insurgent army with the sympathy of the people of Cuba 
have become free and independent, they must have a flag which 
floatsover that island; Si)ain must liavebeen expelled, atanyrate 
her sovcreigntv brukon in Cuba; if those people are in fact-^ — 

Mr. F( )HAKER. Will the Senator from Wisconsin alio 
interrujit him for a moment? 



allow me to 



11 

Mr. SPOONER. Certainly. 

Mr. FORAKER. The Senator says they must h:xve a flagr. I 
wish to advise the Senator from Wisconsin that they do have a 
flag and that when the Maine met with its disaster, that flag, by 
order of the Republic of Cuba, was placed at half-mast and has 
been there from that day until this. 

Mr. SPOONER. Of conrse. If tho Senator had not interrupted 
me in tho middle of a sentence, ho would have heard me say that 
if they are in fact free and independent and the sovereiprtity of 
Spain has gone from that island, their flag would bo floating at 
half-mast all over the island instead of in two or three provinces. 
Of course I do not care to spend more time upon that point. 

There is another element in this matter. Tho benator from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Hoak] suggests to me— and there is something 
in it — that that statement, if it is true, would make them respon- 
sible for the disaster to tho Maine. 

Mr. FORAKER. What statement would make them respon- 
sible? 

Mr. SPOONER. That they are absolutely and in fact now frco 
and independent. 

Mr, FORAKER. Does the Senator from Wisconsin mean to 
insist that a people can not be free and independent and at the 
same time not be in absolute control of each and every particular 
locality within the territory which rightfully belongs to them? 

Mr. SPOONER. No; that is different. 

Mr. FORAKER. That would be a very strange proposition. 

Mr. SPOONER. That is a different question. 

Mr. FORAKER. While it is true that they are free and inde- 
pendent within the meaning and interpretation properly of inter- 
national law, it is also true, as we all know, that there are locali- 
ties in Cuba where they are not in possession of the territory, as 
in the case of Havana and the harbor of Havana. 

Mr. SPOONER. I will get to that point. 

Mr. FORAKER. The Senator had better come to it pretty soon. 

Mr. SPOONER. I will come to it when I discuss the question 
as to whether they have a government there entitled upon princi- 
ples of international law to be recognized. I will admit, as I must 
admit upon the authorities, that it is not essential to their right to 
recognition that they should control every spot and place in the 
island. 

Mr. FORAKER. Has the Senator any question but that Cuba 
will be free and independent in the sense that it will control each 
and every spot in the island within a very short time after we 
intervene? 

Mr. SPOONER. I have no doubt on earth that within a very 
short time after we intervene the people of Cuba will be free and 
independent; and that is why I do not think they are so now. 

There is another peculiarity about this joint resolution. I do 
not intend to be hypercritical about it. That is this: 

That it is the duty of the United States to demand— 

I can understand that as a legislative expression of opinion — 

and the Government of the United States docs hereby demand, that tho Gov- 
ernment of Spain at once reliunuish its authority and government in the 
Island of Cuba and withdraw its laud and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban 
waters. 

When Ijeforo has the Congress of the United States undertaken 
to send an ultimatum to a foreign government? Where does it 



12 

fiml in the Constitution anj' warrant for taking from the hands 
of the Executive the conduct of our foreign relations? I had sup- 
posed until now that the demands of the United States upon for- 
eign governments, by way of ultimatum or less than ultimatum, 
could onlv proceed {hrough the President and that there could 
not he, in"the language of a resolution like this placed upon the 
Btatuto books as a law, a demand upon the Government of Spain 
that she at once relinquish her authority and government in the 
Island of Cuba and withdraw her land and naval forces from 
Cuba and Culjan waters. 

I care nothing about it except that if the view which I have 
taken of it is a correct one, it is not the logical and dignified 
method which ought to be pursued in this exigency by tlie United 
States, wliilo a different and better one would get the same results. 

^Ir. TELLER. I should like to interrupt the Senator to ask 
him if he will indicate what he thinks ought to be the resolution? 

Mr. SPOONER. I think the resolution of the Senator from 
Colorado is infinitely better than this one. 

Mr. TELLER. I 'have several. 

Mr. SPOONER. I have seen but one, and I mean the one I 
like. If the Senator will give me the one he likes, I shall prob- 
ablv like it. 

Mr. TELLER. It has not been offered. 

Mr. STEWART. Read it. 

Mr. SPOONER. I will read it. 

Resolved by the Senate and Houxe of liepresentdtifex of the United States of 
America in Congress assembled. That the war now existing— 

It is not the resolution I had in mind. 

Mr. GRAY. Read it. 

Mr. SPOONER. Very well. 

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Vnited States of 
America in Cont/ress assembled. That tho war now existing between the Gov- 
ernment of Spain and tho Government of Cuba lias been conducted by Spain 
in flagrant violation of the laws of civilized warfare to such an extent as to 
shock the moral sense of the nations of the earth and greatlj' to the injury of 
the United States— 

Now I come to it: 

Therefore the President of the United States is hereby authorized and 
directed to take at once such steps as may be necessary to terminate hostili- 
ties in the Island of Cuba and to secure to the people of that island an inde- 
pendent roimblican government by the people thereof; and the President is 
authorized and directed to use, if necessary, the land and naval forces of the 
United States for the purpose of carrying this joint resolution into effect. 

That is very like the House joint resolution, which I favor. 
The word ' ' independent '' is a great word there. Doubtless there 
were good reasons why the President did not use it. There is no 
good reason why we should not use it. That means what? It 
means independent of Spain, does it not? It means another thing, 
Mr. President, quite as important from the standpoint of interna- 
tional law. It means independent of us. because at the very foun- 
dation of this right of intervention is tho principle that beyond all 
other things you must make it perfectly clear that you have no 
ulterior or selfish purpose whatever. 

Mr. TELLER. Will the Senator allow me to make a sugges- 
tion? The re.solution which he has read has never been offered by 
me. It was prepared before the President's message came to the 
Senate. After 1 read that portion of the message which seemed 
to me to indicate that the President contemplated putting his 
a:;73 



13 

hand upon the insurgents as well as upon Spain, I concluded that 
I preferred to vote lor the provision that bad come in from the 
minority of the committee, recognizing the independence of the 
Republic of Cuba, 

Mr. SPOONER. If the resolution which I have just read to 
the Senate was right when the Senator drew it, it is riglit now 
notwithstanding anything there may be in or omitted from the 
President's message, because we are to deal with this question 
ourselves. He has sent the matter to us, as he must under the 
Constitution, for the power, primarily, is with us. We can not 
abdicate our function or our judgment because of any mistake 
we may think, or any of us may think, he has made. If that is 
the resolution which, without the recommendation of the message, 
we should adopt, it is what we should adopt now. 

Mr. President, 1 have been inclined to think, although I may 
be wrong about it, that the fii-st clause of the joint resolution 
really recognizes the independence of the so-called Republic of 
Cuba. 

Mr. TELLER, If the Senator will allow me, I will state that 
I intended the first lines to recognize independence, for I men- 
tioned the government of Cuba, and I intended thereby to men- 
tion what you might call the revolutionary government. 

Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. The Senator from Wisconsin is 
talking about the other joint resolution. 

Mr. SPOONER. I am talking about the joint resolution re- 
ported by the Senate committee. 

Th.at tho people of the Island of Cuba are, and of riglit ought to he, free 
and independent. 

I hardly know what it means unless it recognizes the govern- 
ment, because one could hardly imagine a people to be free and 
independent in a condition of anarchy, as any people are without 
a government; and if we declare that a peojile are free and inde- 
pendent who have a government, of necessity almost we thereby 
recognize in a way the independence of that government. 

Mr. WHITE. Will the Senator from Wisconsin permit me? 
Is not the word "people," as used in the joint resolution and in 
that connection, the equivalent of "nation"? 

Mr. SPOONER. I think a free and independent people, if they 
have a government, would be a nation, and if they have not a 
government, they might be independent of other powers, btit 
they would be in a condition of anarchy among themselves and 
not a "free people." 

JSlr. WHITE. It would not be a political entity. 

Mr. SPOONER. It would not be a political entity. But while 
I have no earthly objection to interruption so far as debate is con- 
cerned, I speak with the utmost reluctance and I am painfully 
anxious to be through. Many Senators desire to speak, and I do 
not wish to consume an unnecessary moment, as I am obliged to 
do if I am interrnpted. 

Mr. President, 1 am not willing to vote for a proposition to recog- 
nize the independence of the so-called Republic of Cuba. It is not 
to be inferred, because I say that, that I do not sympathize with 
the struggle of that people, that I do not appreciate the gallantry, 
the skill, the devotion, the strategy which have characterized that 
struggle for liberty, for I do. But independence is a fact. It is 
not an expression of sympathy. It is a fact, and that is all it is. 
I may say it is a fact, believing it to be a fact in a particular case. 
3273 



14 

My Ineiul the t^eiuitor from Illinois [Mr. Ci'LLOM] may, upon tho 
evidenco before him, douLt or deny it. Whether the .so-called 
Repnblio of Cuba i.s or is not independent is purely, from the 
Btandpoint of international law and the practice of this Groveru- 
meut, a question of fact. 

My first objection to recognizing and declaring that fact in the 
pending joint resolution is that in my opinion it is not a legisla- 
tive function to declare that fact. I do not intend to take the time 
to argue with any elaboration that proposition, although I have 
examined it with great care. It has been argued in the Senate 
before. The Senator from California [JMr. White] delivered a 
speech of verv great ability and of the utmost learning and research 
upon the (luestion. I believe it to be an Executive, not a legisla- 
tive, function, and I discuss it only for a few moments in order to 
lead me to a proposition which I feel bound in the discharge of 
duty to submit to my brother Senators in this exigency. 

Tht-re are four ways, some of them only qualified, of recogniz- 
ing the independenceof a state. Under the Articles of Confedera- 
tiim it was the Congress that received and sent ambassadors, 
ministers, etc. The Constitution of the United States changed 
that and gave to the President, as one of the executive functions 
the power to receive ambassadors and other public ministers. The 
Constitution vests in him the executive power of tliis nation and 
in him alone, with the qualification which is made as to participa- 
tion by the Senate. All over the world tlie first and the usual evi- 
dence'of a recognition of independence is the reception of an am- 
bassador or minister from the government recognized. 

The President, no man will deny, could to-morrow receive a 
minister from the Republic of Cuba. He could telegraph to-night 
to Mr. Palma to visit him to-morrow at the White House and 
present his credentials, and before 12 o'clock there would be a valid, 
irreversible recognition of the Cuban Republic, so far as we are 
concerned. Congress could not alter it. Does anyone dispute 
that? Necessarily the power to receive a minister involves the 
power to determine whether the government which sends the 
minister is entitled to recognition as one of the independent states 
of the world. 

There is another way of recognizing independence. It can be 
done by treaty. That is an executive function. No one but the 
President can initiate a treaty, and then it requires the partici- 
pation of the Senate. 

If the President and the Senate should enter into a treaty with 
the Republic of Cuba, that would be recognition. That is the 
way the (Tovernment of France recognized our Republic in the 
days of the Revolution, by entering into a treaty of commerce 
with us. What are the other ways, Mr. President? The Con- 
gress may pass a /a (c— pass a hiir, mind you— appropriating 
money to pay the salary of a minister to the' Republic of Cuba. 
If the President signs the bill, that would be a recognition, in a 
sense, of the Cuban Republic. It would be a recognition of it so 
far as Congress could recognize it. It would not be absolute. No 
power on earth, in my judgment, could compel the President to 
send a minister there until he had determined that it was a gov- 
ernment entitled to recognition. Nor could Congress coerce in 
any way the President to receive a minister from there. 

Tlie passage of such a bill would not require the President to 
receive a minister from the Republic of Cuba— not at all. But I 



15 

;all Senators' attention to tho fact that, while that wonld be 
m incidental recognition of the Republic of Cuba, it would not 
be, as we i)iopo.se hero, a rnere dccluraiiun of the fuct. It would 
be an incident to the exeivise of a cliar hijishtlire jxiircr. Tho 
power to create tho office and provide the salarj- is, of course, 
;)urely legislative. And Congress might pass a law regulating 
:he value of the coins of tho Republic of Cuba to be circulatt'(l 
n this country, and that, when signed by the President, would 
je as one incident to tho exercise of the legislative i)owcr, a roc- 
jgnition of the republic. Still for purposes of commercial inter- 
course it would not recognize tho Republic of Cuba. 

1 wish to say here that, as a lawyer — I know other Fciiakirs dif- 
'er with me about it; tliey are entitled to their opinions and I am 
'ntitled to mine — 1 believe it to be an absolutely sound proposition 
hat the recognition of independence substantively is a function of 
he Executive, and that when Congress attempts, not in tho exei*- 
nse of the legislative power, but as a mere declaration of a sub- 
itantive fact, to do that thing, it usurps an Executive function 
md attempts to make a precedent which ought not. in the inter- 
est of this Government, to be established. Alexander Hamilton, 
u the Pacificus letters, says: 

The right of tho Executive to receive ambassadors and other public min- 
sters may sorve to illustrate the relative duties of tho executive and leg'is- 
ativo departments. This right iueludes that of judtd"S, in tho case of a 
evolutiou of government in a foreign country, whether the new rulers are 
competent organs of tho national will, and ought to bo recognized, or not. 

It needs no argument to show that the power to receive am- 
jassadors, ministers, etc., of necessity involves the power todeter- 
nine whether the authority which sends is an authority entitled 
send. Every President, without exception, from the beginning 
)f tho Government, has determined this matter by receiving min- 
sters, and from this judgment there has been no appeal. No law 
s to be found in the archives of the Government in which Con- 
press has attempted to recognize independence by a mere decla- 
ation. 

Mr. Justice Story says, in his Commentaries: 

Sec 15Co. The next power is to receive ambassadors and other public minis- 
ers. Thishasbeenalready incidentally touched. A similar pi iwcr existed un- 
lorthe Confederation; but it was confined to receiving ■"ambassadors," which 
v()rd,in a strict sense (as has been already stated), cominvhends the highest 
Tade only of ministers, and not those of an inferior character. The policy of 
he United States would ordinarily prefer tho employment of the inferior 
rrades; and therefore the description is properly enlarged, so as to include all 
lasses of ministers. Why the receiving of consuls was not also expressly 
neutioued, as tho appointment of them is in the preceding clause, is not easily 
o be accounted for, especially as the defect of the confederation on this head 
vas fully understood. The power, however, may bo fairly inferred from 
ither parts of the Constitution; and, indeed, seems a general incident to tho 
xecutiveauthority. It hasconstuntly beenexerciscd withoutob.jection; and 
oreign consuls have never been allowed to discharge any functions of oUice 
in til they have received theexeiiuatur of the President. Consuls, indeed, are 
lot diplomatic functionaries or political representatives of a foreign nation, 
lut are treated in tho character of mere commercial agents. 

Skc. IJXM). Tho power to receive amba.ssadors and nimisters is always an 
mportant and sometimes a very delicate function, since it constitutes tho 
nly accredited medium through which negotiations and friendly relations 
ro ordinarily can-iod on with foreign powers. A government may, in its 
iscretion, lawfully refuses to receive an amlcussador or other minister with- 
ut its atTf^rdiug any just cause of war. IJut it would generally be deemed 
n unfriendly act, and might provoke hostilities unless accompanied liy con- 
iliatory exiManations. A refusal is sometimes made on the ground of tho 
lad character of the minister, or his former offensive conduct, or i>f tho spo- 
ial suliject of the embassy not being i)roper or convenient fur discussiuii. 
.'his, however, is rarely done. But a much more delicate occasion is when a 
3273 



16 

civil war breaks out in a nation, and two nations are formed, or two parties 
in the sanio nation, each claiming the sovereignty of the whole, and tne con- 
test remains as yet undecided, flagrante bello. In such a case a neutral na- 
tion may very projjerly withhold its recognition of the supremacy of either 
party or of the existence of two independent nations, and on that account 
refuse to receive an ambassador from either. It is obvious that in such cases 
the simple acknowledgment of the minister of either party or nation might 
be deemed takinfj part against the other, and thus as affording a strong coun- 
tenance or opposition to rebellion and civil dismemberment. On this account, 
nations ])laced in such a predicament have not hesitated sometimes to de- 
clare war against neutrals as interposing in the war, and have made them 
the victims of their vengeance when they have been anxious to assume a neu- 
tral position. The exorcise of this prerogative of acknowledging new nations 
or ministers is therefore, under such circumstances, AN Executive fcnc- 
aiox OF OUEAT DEi.if'Acy, whicli requires the utmost caution and delibera- 
tion. If the Executive receives an amba.ssador or other minister as the repre- 
sentative of a new nation, or of a party in a civil war in an old nation, it is an 
acknowledgment of the .sovereign authority de facto of such new nation or 
party. If such recognition is made, it is conclusive upon the nation, unless, 
indeed, it can bo reversed by an act of Congi-ess repudiating it. If, on the 
other baud, such recognition has been refused by the Executive, it is said that 
Congress may, notwithstanding, solemnly acknowledge the sovereiffnty of 
the nation or party. These, however, are propositions which have hitherto 
remained as abstract statements under the Constitution, and therefore can 
be propounded, not as absolutely true, but as still open to discussion if they 
Bhould ever arise in the course of our foreign diplomacy. The Constitution 
has expre.ssly invested the Executive with power to receive ambassadors and 
other ministers. It has not expressly invested Congress with the power 
either to repudiate or acknowledge them. At all events, in the case of a 
revolution or dismemberment of a nation, the judiciary can not take notice 
of any new government or sovereignty until it has been duly recognized by 
.some other department of the Government to whom the power is constitu- 
tionally confided. 

Si;c. l.'jtiT. That a power so extensive in its reach over our foreign relations 
could not be properly conferred on any other than the executive department 
will admit of little doubt. That it should be exclusively confided to that de- 
partment, without any participation of the Senate in the functions (that body 
being conjointly intrusted with the treaty-making power), is not so obvious. 
Probably the circumstance that in all foreign governments the power was 
exclusively confided to the executive department, and the utter impractica- 
bility of keeping the Senate constantly in session, and the suddenness of the 
emergencies which might require the action of the Government, conduced 
to the establishment of the authority in its present form. 

Mr. Justice Story, delivering the opinion of the court in Wil- 
liams vs. The Suffolk Insurance Company, o Sumner, 272 et seq., 
Bays, among other things: 

It is very clear that it belongs crchixirel!/ to the executive department 
of our Government to recognize from time to time any new governments 
■which may arise in the political revolutions of the world: and until such new 
governments are so recognized they can not be admitted by our courts of 
j ustice to have or exercise the common rights and prerogatives of sovereignty. 

This was in 1838. The Supreme Court of the United States af- 
firmed this judgment, in Williams vs. The Suffolk Insurance 
Company. 13 Peters, 420, Mr. Justice McLean delivering the opin- 
ion, in which it is said: 

And can there be any doubt that when the executive bi-anch of the Gov- 
ernment, tritirh is charged ivith onr foreign relations, shaU in its correspond- 
ence with a foreign nation assume a fact in regard to the sovereignty of any 
island or country, it is conclusive on the .judicial department? And in this 
view it is not material to inquire, nor is it the province of the court to de- 
termine, whether the Executive be right or wrong. It is enough to know 
that in the exercise of his constitutional functions lie has decided the ques- 
tion. Having done this under the resi)onsibilities which belong to him, it is 
obligatory on the people and Government of the Union. 

In United States r.s. Hiitchings, 2 Wheeler's Criminal Cases, 
ni3, Chief Justice Marshall had occasion to pass upon the question. 
It was a prosecution for piracy, and the question arose whether 
at a certain date the Republic of Buenos Ayres was independent. 
Counsel contended that the independence of Buenos Ayres com- 



17 

menced with their declaration of independence, etc. Chief Jus- 
tice Marshall said: 

That a nation became independent from its declaration of independence 
only as respects its own government and the various departments thereof. 
That before it could be considered indeiu'iulent by the judiciary of foreipu 
nations it was necessary that its independence should be recoKuized by the 
executive authority of those nations. That as our Executive had never rec- 
ognized the independence of Buenos Ay res, it was not competent to the court 
to pronounce its independence. 

In the Prize Case.s [2 Black, 03.")), in which the Snpi*eme Conrt 
had occa.sion to deal with the question, and, although it related 
to a domestic difficulty, the principle is substantially the same, 
the court says: 

Whether the President, in fulfillins his duties as Commander in Chief in 
suppressing an insurrection, has met with such armed hostile resistance and 
a civil war of such al.irming i>roportions as will coinjicl liim to accord to them 
the character of belligerents, is a question to bo decided by him, and this 
court must bo governed by the decisions and acts of thoiwlitical department 
of the Government to which this power was intrusted. 

The italics are tised by the court. 

In the case of The United States vs. Trumbull (48 Federal Re- 
porter, 99) , referring to the late civil war in Chile, Judge Ross saj's: 

It is iKjyond question that the status of the people composing the Congres- 
pioual party at the time of the commission of the alleged ofiense is to be re- 
garded by the court as it was then regarded by the political or executive 
department of the United States. This doctrine is firmly established. 

In the case of the Itata (56 Federal Reporter, 505) Judge Haw- 
ley, speaking for the circuit court of appeals for the ninth circuit, 
said: 

The law is well settled that it is the duty of the courts to regard the status 
of the Congressional party in the same light as they were regarded by the 
executive department of the United States at the time the alleged offenses 
were committed. 

See, also, Pomeroy's Constitutional Law, pages 669-672. 

It is impossible on this occasion to thorough! j' discuss the ques- 
tion with reference to the utterances of distinguished statesmen 
and to the precedents upon the subject. Any Senator who cares 
to pursue it will find in Senate Document No. 56, Fifty-fourth 
Congress, second session, abundant information. 

The practice has been all one way, and I do not find any case 
which, fairly considered, sustains the power of Congress to, by a 
mere declaration, recognize the independence of a foreign state. 

Mr. DANIEL. Will my friend from Wisconsin allow me to in- 
terrupt him for iust a moment? 

Mr. SPOONER. Certainly. 

Mr. DANIEL. I want to call the attention of my honorablo 
friend to the case of The United States vs. Palmer (3 Whea- 
ton, 048) and the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the 
United States in 137 United States Reports, page 212, the opinion 
given by Judge Graj', and I call his attention to the fact that 
these decisions declare the proper authority to recognize a gov- 
ernment are the legislative and executive departments of the 
United States. 

Mr. SPOONER. It has been done that way, as I stated a while 
ago. If the Congress to-day should amend the diplomatic and 
consular appropriation bill and insert a provision providing a sal- 
ary for the minister to the Republic of Cuba, and the President 
should sign it. that would be, I think my friend will admit, as far 
as Congress could go in the exercise of the legislative power to 
ai73— 3 



18 

declare or acknowledge that fact, but that would not receive a 
y:inister or send one. 

Mr. DANIEL. Thny can do it in a hundred ways. 

Mr. SPOONER. There is one great reason which I never have 
been able in my own mind to escape why this must be, in the 
last analysis, considered an executive rather than a legislative 
function, and that is this: It is a shifting affair. We may recog- 
nize a republic to-day, and four months from now the mother 
country may have conquered it and the republic will have ceased 
to exist. 

If this thing, which is a mere declaration of fact, is to have the 
effect of a law, a "rule of action" binding upon the Executive, it 
must control him, whether it is true or false, until the power that 
made it unmakes it. So it is perfectly clear, in my judgment, 
that it is essential to the interest of the Republic that this assertion 
which may be true to-day and six months hence may be false, 
should be left for determination, from time to time, by the execu- 
tive department of the Government. John Quincy Adams thought 
60. Daniel Webster distinctly stated so. 

Mr. TELLER. I wish to ask the Senator if he is not aware 
that the legislative department of the Government on various oc- 
casions has denied that proposition? 

Mr. SPOONER. I am coming to that point. 

Mr. TELLER. I am not expressing any opinion myself on the 
question. I wish to call his attention, if he will allow me, to a 
resolution which passed the House December 19, 1864, by a vote 
of 118 to 8. Will the Senator excuse me if I read it? I think it 
may add something to our knowledge. 

Mr. SPOONER. The Henry Winter Davis resolution? 

Mr. TELLER. Yes, the Henry Winter Davis resolution. It is 
as follows: 

Hcsolved, That Congress has a constitutional right toan authoritative voice 
In declaring and prescribing the foreign policy of the United States, as well 
in tlie recognition of new powers as in other matters, and it is the constitu- 
tional duty of tlie President to respect that policy not loss in diplomatic ne- 
gotiations than in the use of the national force when authorized by law. 

That was carried by 118 votes to 8, and the distinguished Sena- 
tor from Iowa who sits in front of me was one of those who voted 
affirmatively, and I find certain other gentlemen with whom I 
have served in this body who also voted for it. I desire to say to 
the Senator that I am not expressing any opinion on the point my- 
self. 

Mr. SPOONER. I am quite familiar with that resolution. 
That was a revolt by Mr. Davis against President Lincoln and 
Mr. Seward. It was during the war. It was a mere expression 
of opinion on the part of the House of Representatives, and it was 
evoked by a dispatch from Mr. Seward to the French minister. 
It was a quarrel between Mr. Seward and Mr. Henry Winter 
Davis, who at that time was chairman of the Committee on For- 
eign Affairs of the House. 

That the Congress of the United States are unwilling, by silence, to leave 
the nations of the world under the impression that they are indifferent spec- 
tators of the deplorable events now transpiring in the Republic of Mexico, 
an(i that they therefore think fit to declare that it does not accord with the 
policy of the United States to acknowledge any monarchical government 
erected on the ruins of any republican government in America under the 
auspices of any European power. 

That is the resolution as first introduced by Mr. Davis. 
«K73 



10 

In consequence of an article in the Monitenr, the official jonrnal of the 
French Ciovernuii-nt, the House on May '^ roijuesti-d the President, to com- 
inuiiicato "any explanations nivon liy the Government of the United States 
to the Uovcrnment of France" resiieotinp: this resolution. l>resident Lin- 
coln in turn, on May i">, communicated to the House certain corresjjondouc.o 
l^et ween Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, and Mr. Dayton, the minister to 
France ( page 2175 ). 

Mr. Seward writes that the French minister havinpr asked an explanation 
of the re.solution, he inclosed it, with the statement tliat it "truly interprets 
the uniform sentiment of the people of the United States in regard to Mexico." 

That was little move than a new declaration of the Monroe doc- 
trine, and was aimed at tlie French interixwition by occupation in 
the affairs of Mexico while we were struggling lor the life of the 
Kepublic. 

Mr. Seward, who was a very able lawyer, I think it will be ad- 
mitted, a great diplomat, a man whoso memory is fragrant and 
will always be for the wonderful skill he displayed on many oc- 
casions in circumstances of extreme embarrassment, in a dispatch 
said as to the resolution: 

It is, however, another and distinct question whether the United States 
would think it m-cessarv or i>roper to express thoni-selves in the form adopted 
by the House of Kepre.-^entatives at thi.s time. Tins is A 1'KACTIcal and 

I'LHEI.Y EXECUTIVE ylK.STION, AND A DECISION OF IT CONSTITUTIONALLY 
IIEI.ONOS, NOT TO THE HOUSE OF REPHESENTATIVES NOR EVEN CONGKESS, 
BUT TO THE PHESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 

But it made trouble in the House, It generated bad blood. 
There was factional disturbance there. There was hostility to 
Mr. Lincoln. We wonder at this day that there ever could have 
leen any, as we will wonder some day, looking back on this day, 
that there could have been uttered some of the criticisms which 
have been heard here upon President McKinley. 

About it Mr. Blaine said: 

To adopt this principle is to start out with a new theory in the administra- 
tion of our foreign affairs, and I think the House has justilied its sense of 
self-respect and Us just appreciation of the spheres of the coordinate depart- 
ments of Oovernment by promptly laying the resolution on the table. 

That is what the House first did with it. 

Mr. TELLER. The first resolution? 

Mr. SPOOLER. No; this resolution. That is what the Ho-Dse 
first did with it. Thereupon, you remember, Mr. Henry Winter 
Davis, feeling himself affronted, resigned his position as chairman 
of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and afterwards the resolu- 
tion was amended and adopted by the House. 

Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. Passed to heal the breach. 

Mr. SPOONER. Passed to heal the breach, passed to prevent 
further division in the face of war, but only at best an expression 
of opinion upon the part of the House. Allow me for a moment 
to refer to the case of Kennett et al. vs. Chambers, decided by the 
Supreme Court of the United States, 14 Howard. '60. 

The case fairly involved the question when Texas was recog- 
nized by the United States Government as an independent State. 
The court say, through Chief Justice Taney: 

But it has been urged in the argument that Texas was in fact independent 
and a sovereign state at the time of this agreement, antl that the citizen of ti 
neutral nation may lawfully lend monej- to one that is engaged in war, to en- 
able it to carry o!i hostilities against its enemy. 

It is not necessary in the case Iwforo us to decide how far the judicial tri- 
bun.ils of the United States would enforce a contr.act like this when two 
states acknowledged to bo independent were at war and this country neu- 
tral. It is a suftifient answer to the argument to say that the question 
whether Texas had or had not at that time become an independent state wa.^ 
n question for that department of our Uovcrnment exclusively which j" 
charged with our foreign relations. 



20 

Has anyone ever heard before now that the Congress of the United 
States is charged with the conduct of our foreign relations, to 
present in the form of a statute, an ultimatum to a foreign govern- 
ment? The argument against any such possibility is made abso- 
lutely unanswerable by Justice Story, by Mr. Pomeroy, and by 
others in their explanation of why the President, not Congress, 
was invested with this power, which requires unity, secrecy, dis- 
patch. I am quite sure that if it were vested in the Senate there 
would not be much secrecy about it. What does the court further 
say? 

And until the period when the department recognized it as an independ- 
ent State, the juaicial tribunals of the country were bound to consider the 
old order of things a.s having continued, and to regard Texas as a part of the 
Mexican territor;5'. And if we undertook to inquire whether she had not in 
fact bccv")mo an independent sovereign Stato before she was recognized as 
such by the treaty-inakinij powir, we should take upon ourselves the exer- 
cise of political authority, for which a judicial tribunal is wholly unfit, and 
which the Constitution has conferred exclusively upon another department. 

This excludes Congress. 

Mr. HALE. Will the Senator from Wisconsin allow me to call 
attention to an instance in our history that is precisely in point? 
When, in 1837, a resolution was before the House of Representa- 
tives acknowledging the independence of the Republic of Texas, 
on motion it was amended by adding to it " whenever the President 
in his discretion shall deem it advisable to so recognize it." 

^Ir. SPOONER. I have all that in this memorandum. And so 
again with the recognition of the independence of Texas. A reso- 
lution was introduced in the Senate recognizing independence. 
It was merely an expression of the sense of the Senate, just as the 
Senate resolution recognizing Cuban belligerency was an expres- 
sion of the sense of the Senate. 

In the debate upon the resolution on Jnly 1, Mr. Preston said "that he had 
with difficulty restrained himself from offering an amendment to recognize 
the independence of Texas immediately." Mr. Webster said: 

"He was willing to go so far aa to vote funds to enable the President to 
Bend out a proper minister." 

I admit that that is the exercise of a legislative power, and that 
incidental to it is the recognition. 

But against a direct recognition he thought there existed strongobjec- 
tions. It was the proper function of the President to take the lead in this 
matter. 

Mr. Pasco rose. 

Mr. SPOONER. I beg my friend not to interrupt me, for I 
must get through. 

Mr. PASCO. If the Senator will permit me, suppose the pend- 
ing joint resolution passes with the amendment offered by the 
minority, and the Executive signs the joint resolution. 

Mr. SPOONER. I will get to that. 

Mr. PASCO. But it passes the two Houses. Would not that 
be a valid recognition of the independence of the Republic of 
Cuba? 

Mr. SPOONER. I doubt it. I do not think it would be. That 
would not, without further action by the President, bring about 
or authorize any intercourse between the two. And suppose Con- 
gress should pass such a measure, and the President should receive 
a minister from the Republic of Cuba, and four weeks from now, 
or five months from now, Congress not being in session, Spain 
should receive assistance and should expel that government and 
resume her sway in Cuba, would this act of Congress, which it is 

3273 



21 

asserted Congress has the power to pass, simply declaring a fact, 
be binding on anybody? 

Woiild it be overturned as an act of Congress and rendered of 
no eft'ect as a rule binding upon the President by successful uperu- 
tions rendered after its passage in the Island of Cuba? Ordi- 
narily, as I stated a few moments ago, any act which Congress 
has the power to pass, being signed by the President, is binding 
upon the President and upon the country until Congress repeals 
it. But the matter of recognition of independence, being depend- 
ent upon the varying fortunes of battle, one fact this montli and 
possibly another next month, in the very nature of things that can 
not Le a legislative function. 

Mr. PASCO. I wish to suggest to the Senator from Wisconsin 
that wo are legislating and the President is acting for the present 
and not for the future, and when future clianges come, tlien will 
be the time to consider what action is to be taken in reference to 
future changes. 

Mr. SPOONER. That is true as to law. When you pass a law, 
it stays there until you repeal it, does it not? 

Mr. fSTEWART. The Uovernment will keep a minister there 
if Congress recognizes the republic. 

Mr. SPOONER. It can not keep a minister there if the gov- 
ernment to which we send a minister is in the meantime, while 
Congress is not in session, destroyed; and if a new government is 
erected, one for which Congress has not provided a minister, is it 
to be said that the President of the United States may not recog- 
nize that new government by receiving from it a minister? In 
the very nature of things it is a power which was intended to be 
lodged with the Executive, and it must be lodged with the Execu- 
tive in order to subserve the interests of our people. 

But, Mr. President, it can not be lodged in both places. If it 
is a legislative power, the President has no right to exercise it. If 
it is an executive power. Congress has no right to exercise it. It 
can not very well be both. 

I wish I had time to read from Mr. Maclison. in one of the Hel- 
vidius letters, an absolute demonstration of this proposition. 
Senators say that it is a legislative power. Do Senators deny, then, 
to the President the power, beyond the reach of review by Con- 
gress, to recognize the Cuban Republic to-morrow? No one will 
deny that. 

But does he do it in the exercise of legislative power? No; he 
does it in the exercise of an executive power. Now, which is it? 
Is it both? If it is both, we have this situation: We have Con- 
gress declaring a fact which the President, acting upon his oath, 
declares is not a fact. What then? We have a conllict which 
the Supreme Court of the United States in SutTolk rs. Williaiiis 
say could not be tolerated between any of the departments of this 
Government. 

But I can not argue longer the question. 

Now, this brings me to just this situation, and I beg the atten- 
tion of Senators to it for a'moment: It will be admitted that never 
Bince Hamilton wrote the words which I have read in tlie i)resenco 
of the Senate has there been a President or a Secretary of State wlio 
has not denied that this is a legislative function. 

Mr. BACON. Will the Senator from Wisconsin permit mo to 
correct him? 

Mr. SPOONER. Presidents once or twice, I think, where :t 

0273 



22 

has been thought that the recognition involved international rela- 
tions which might involve war, invited the cooperation of Con- 
gress. 

Mr. BACON. I will not seek to interrupt the Senator now. I 
will make mv statement later. 

Mr. SPOONER. The only ground that is logical at all for those 
who maintain the opposite of the proposition is that maintained 
by the Senatf^r from Georgia, who says it is a legislative power 
and that the President exercises it only by the implied consent of 
Congress. Do I state it correctly? 

Mr. BACON. I beg the Senator's pardon; I did not know ho 
was addressing himself to me. 

Mr. SPOONER. I say there is no logical ground upon which the 
counter-contention may be put except that suggested in a speech 
by the Senator from Georgia, who insisted, as 1 recollect it, that 
it is a legislative power, and that when the President exercises it 
he does it only by the implied assent of Congress. 
Mr. BACON. The Senator is correct. 
Mr. PASCO. Implied or actual assent? 

Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President, that runs afoul of the pretty 
well settled proposition that legislative power can not be dele- 
gated. Congress can not delegate expressly or by consent to the 
President any legislative power. 

Mr. BACON. Will the Senator permit me, in order that I may 
not be misunderstood (as he asked me the question and then 
seeks to draw a conclusion), to state what I mean when I speak 
of it as an implied assent? I will do it by illustration. The 
President, under certain circumstances, might order a war ship to 
bombard a town. 
Mr. SPOONER. I think he will. 

Mr. BACON. Very well. If Congress saw fit to do it, it could 
countermand the order. When I say Congress I mean the law- 
making power. 
Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President, I deny it. 
Mr. BACON. Wait a moment. 

Mr. SPOONER. Congress has power to declare war, but the 
President of the United States is Commander in Chief of the land 
and naval forces of the United States. 
Mr. BACON. I am not speaking of a time of war. 
Mr. SPOONER. Oh! 

Mr. BACON. I am speaking, for instance, of such an act as the 
bombardment of Grey Town. 
Mr. SPOONER. Yes. 

Mr. BACON. That is what I am speaking of. There is no 
doubt of the fact, and the Senator, I presume, will not deny it 
with as much vehemence as he did just now, that if Congress had 
been in session and had known of the Presidents determination, 
Congress, by law, could have stopped that war ship from making 
that bombardment. In not doing so there would have been an 
implied assent by Congress to such an act on the part of the Presi- 
dent. 

Mr. SPOONER. That is, Congress by its silence ratified a 
usurpatory act on the part of the Executive. Is that what the 
Senator means? 

Mr. BACON. No; I do not mean a usurpatory act at all, but I 
do say it was an act whicli it was within the power of Congress to 
have denied to the President, and when it was not denied there was 



the implied assent. I used that siiiii>ly liy way of illustration to 
deny the conclusion of the h'enator tliat there is any ar;,'unient on 
my part looking to a <lflegation of legislative power uu the part of 
Congress to the President. 

Mr. SPOOK ER. The Senator in his speech, which was a very 
able and ingenious speech, did not say tliat in terms, of course. I 
beg pardon for what seemt'd to him to be vehemence; it is a fault 
of my manner. and only that: but what I say is that the Sena- 
tor's argument seems to me to involve a delegation of legislative 
power, which, of course, is inadmissible. 

Now, Mr. President, whatever else maybe said about it. for the 
purposes of the appeal which I wish to address now to the Senato 
we will call it a disputed proposition. Many men of ability think 
and have argued one way and many of equal ability have thought 
and argued the other way. All the Presidents, with an exception 
or two, and President Jackson reserved the (juestion. have thought 
the other way and insisted the other way. 

It becomes an important matter to-day. It is on this occasion 
not an abstraction. The President in the message which he has 
sent to Congress, and no one will question tlie sincerity of his 
utterance, and no one will question the facilities which he has 
had at his command to ascertain the fact, has declared it to l)ehi8 
conviction that as a fact there is no Republic of Cuba which is 
entitled upon the principles of international law to be recognized 
as an independent power. 

Now. we are asked to pass a resolution — a joint resolution — to be 
sent to him asserting a contrary fact, and coupled with it a power 
which all the people of the United States want given to the Presi- 
dent, and which he has asked, in an exigency demanding haste, 
upon humanitarian and other grounds — is it a good time, Senators, 
is it a good time for sober-minded men to force this issue? 

Is it a fair proposition when the President, acting within hia 
sphere, decides the question of fact one way and notifies us in his 
message of his decision that wo should decide it another, and 
under cover of a momentous exigency like this we should call 
upon him to sign a resolution contradicting the fact as stated 
by his message and surrender a prerogative upon the demand of 
Congress, a prerogative which ho thinks is executive and which 
all the Presidents, from Washington down, have considered execu- 
tive? "Whatever may be the law of the matter, I hope Senators 
will agree that this is not a good time nor a fair way to force 
from the Executive an assertion, or a surrender, of the long-claimed 
and exercised prerogative. 

Mr. STEWART. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a ques- 
tion? 

Mr. SPOONER. Certainly. 

Mr. STEWART. Have we not got a right to examine the con- 
ditions upon which we will declare war? Is it not our duty to do 
BO? And if the conditions are not sucli as we think would war- 
rant war, are Ave bound to vote for war? Have we not a right to 
determine under what conditions war ought to bo declared? It 
seems to me that we have that question before us. 

Mr. GRAY. Not necessarily. 

Mr. SPOONER. I do not see that that has any necessary con- 
nection with the observatioES which I am submitting to the 

Mr. STEWART. If the fact does not exist that there are any 

3273 



21 

local rights there and no government of any kind, I do not know 
what right we have to go there and commence war. 

Mr, GRAY. I will say to the Senator from Nevada and the 
Senator from Wisconsin that we are interfering on distinctly dif- 
ferent grounds, if we interfere at all. If it is a necessary war 
measure, it will be for the Commander in Chief when war is de- 
clared to exercise the power. 

Mr. SPOONJER. That is true. Mr. President, I object to the 
recognition of independence upon another ground. I object to it 
because upon principles of international law there is no govern- 
ment in Cuba, so far as we have any information of it, which is 
entitled to be recognized as an independent state. As I said a 
little while ago, independence is a fact. What is the rule upon the 
subject? There are a great many authorities upon it and a great 
many precedents. The elementary books are full. 

Mr. STEWART. I deny our right to go anywhere and estab- 
lish a government unless we annex the country. As to establish- 
ing a government for somebody else, I deny our right to do it. 

Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President, we do not propose to go any- 
where and establish a government, nor do we propose to annex 
Cuba; nor do we propose in any way to absorb Cuba; nor do 
we propose to apply to the purposes of the United States one 
penny of Cuban revenue. Our purposes are far above that. We 
intervene, if we go there, in the affairs of Cuba for what pur- 
pose? We intervene to put an end to savagery. We intervene 
because the continued rule by Spain in Cuba menaces our peace. 
We intervene because, as a Christian nation at the end of the nine- 
teenth century, we can not stand it any longer in the sight of God. 
That is why we intervene. We go there, Mr. President, and we 
will, of course, take the side of the insurgents. 

Mr. STEWART. That is not what you say. 

Mr. SPOOISIER. I do say so, and the Senator never doubted 
for a moment that I would say so. I think no man, unless he is 
blinded by party zeal, unless he seeks in this moment of supreme 
peril to find fault with an Executive, would doubt for a moment 
that that is one purpose of our intervention, and that its effect will 
be Cuban independence. 

Mr. STEWART. 1 want the resolution to say so. That is what 
we are discussing. 

Mr. SPOONER. I am advocating the adoption of a resolution 
which does say so, and you are advocating the adoption of a reso- 
lution which says they are already independent. 

In the message of the President is the doctrine in regard to this 
subject declared by President Jackson, and although he sent a 
Charge to Texas, having approved the bill which provided the sal- 
ary and so forth, that did not in anywise indicate a change of 
opinion as to what was required as evidence within the rules of 
international law to warrant a recognition of independence. 

Mr. MASON. The Senator will admit, however, that it was one 
case where the legislative action preceded the executive action. 

Mr. SPOONER. That has often happened. If we should pass 
a bill to-day appropriating money to pay the salary of a minister 
to.the Republic of Cuba, and two weeks from now the President 
should recognize the Republic of Cuba, the executive action 
would follow the legislative action just as it did in the other case. 
But tliat wcmld not change the doctrine of international law at 
all. That would not make any change in the principle that cer- 



25 

tain facts must exist in order to warrant a recognition of imle- 
pendence. 

As stated in the very able report of the Comniitteo on Foreign 
Relations, written by its distinf;:uished chairman [Mr. iJ.vvisJ — 
who I hope may long remain a member of this body, in which he 
renders exceptional service to the country and slieds luster upon 
the great State which sends him hero— intervention is a matter 
of high politics. 

Every State must determine for itself when it will intervene and 
to what extent it will intervene. But on the principles of inter- 
national law this matter of independence is a matter of right. 

If a people in fact have established such a govcrninent as within 
the principles laid down by President Jackson constitutes them a 
state, it is entitled to recognition. Different principles apply to 
the exercise of the right of intervention from those whicli ajiply 
to the exercise of the right of recognition. This is laid down 
in the seventh annual message of General Grant, and I believe it to 
be a fair statement as to what is necessary to warrant the recog- 
nition of a state. 

To establish the condition of things essential to the recognition of this 
fact— 

Because it is only a fact — 

there mtist be a people occupying a known territory, united under some 
known and defined form of government acknowledged l>y those subject 
thereto, in which tho functions of government are administered by usual 
methods, competent to mete out justice to citizens and strangers, to afford 
remedies for public and for private wrongs- 
It would not be safe to admit a new member into the familj' of 
nations with any less than these requirements. It would not be 
able to protect its own people. It would not be able to discharge 
its international obligations. States are particular about this, 
because governments have to deal with each other; and when they 
recognize a government, from that moment it is an equal, what- 
ever its size or power; and they must see that it is a government 
capable of discharging the functions of a government both at 
home and abroad, capable of playing its part as a member of tho 
family of nations; and there is no work on international law which 
does not declare that it is a delicate office and should be exercised 
with the utmost care and discretion. Let me continue what I waa 
reading. I had not finished it — 

and able to assume the correlative international obligations, and capable of 
performing the corresponding international duties resulting from its acquis- 
ition of the rights of sovereignty. A power .should exist roini)li'te in its or- 
ganization, ready to take and able to maintain its place among the nations of 
the earth. 

Sir Edward Creasy says, page 679: 

Speaking generally, two facts should concur before this grave step [that 
of recognizing the new state against the wish of tho old stAto be taken): 

1. The practical <us.sation of hostilities on tho nart of the old state, whicli 
may lung i)rocedo the theori'tical renunciation of nor rights over the revolted 
member of her former dominion. 

2. Then should occur the consolidation of tho new state, so far at least as 
to be in a condition of maintaining international relations with other i-<«uii- 
tries, an ab.soluto bona fide jxjsse.ssion of imlependeneo as a separate king- 
dom, not the enjoyment of perfect and tindisttirbed internal tnin<|uillitv--» 
test too severe for many or the oldest kinu'doms. Hut there sliouM In- tho 
existence of a government, acknowledged l)y the people over whom it is set. 
and ready and able to nrovo its responsibility for their conduct when tl ey 
come in contact with otuor nationa. 

S27J 



2G 

Again: 

It has been pointed out in an early portion of this volume that a state, in 
order to be entitled to take its place in the great family of sovereign political 
Bocieties, must not only be free from government from without, but it must 
govern itself. The sense and necessity of this rule are too obvious to require 
any comment. 

I do not understand why there is such haste for recognition of a 
government in Cuba. 

It will not be long after the flag of the United States is can-ied 
to the Island of Cuba when the people there who sympathize with 
the army of Gomez will rally around him— it will not be long— 
and if the people of Cuba recognize, as they will, if they think 
they ought to, this revolutionary or provisional government with 
its constitution, as a government under v.'hich they wish to live, 
it is for them to say so; and the President promptly can and 
promptly would recognize it and admit it into the family of states 
so far as we are concerned. If, on the other hand, for any reason, 
its people should not wish to live under its constitution, to be de- 
cided by them, not by us; if they prefer, by a fair expression of 
their opinion, another government with a dilferent constitution, 
it is for them to say, not for us; and when such a government 
shall have been erected by them, not by us, and it raises its flag— 
and it doubtless will be the flag under which Maceo died and Gomez 
fights— then it will be for us to recognize its independence and to 
stand by it. 

The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Tillman] talks about 
the carpetbagger. That was a grievous trouble to your people, 
but it was not willingly put upon you. It was an outgrowth of 
a condition, happily gone, and now only recalled as part of history. 
We would have been glad if it could have been avoided. None of 
us denied the evils of it: and the Senator surely does not suppose 
for a moment that the United States intervening here by force of 
arms upon high grounds— so high that no government will ques- 
tion its purpose; and I regret that any Senator has seen fit to 
challenge it— will send there an army to install as governors, as 
chieftains, as tax collectors, carpetbaggers from the United States. 
No. no. 

Mr. TILLMAN. Will the Senator allow me? 

The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Wisconsin 
consent to be interrupted? 

Mr. SPOONER. Of course. 

Mr. TILLMAN. I am glad to hear what I did not doubt the 
Senator from Wisconsin would deny, and I dare say all the Sena- 
tors here will denv, that there is any such purpose. I hope none 
such exists; but why not let us make plain and clear what this 
resolution means, so that such a condition shall not exist under 
any temptation that may come? 

Mr. SPOONER. The House of Representatives has passed a 
resolution providing for this intervention and for an independent 
government of the people of Cuba. I favor it. Here it is: 

Eesolved by the Senate and House of nejrresentativM of the United States of 
America in Congress assembled. That the President is hereby authorized and 
directed to intervene at once to stop the war in Cuba, to the end and with the 
purpose of .securing permanent peace and order there and estal)lishmg liy the 
free action of the people thereof a stable and independent government of their 
own in the Island of Cuba; and the President is hereby authorized and em- 
powered to use the land and naval forces of the United States to execute the 
purpose of this resolution. 

Is not that enough? I do not like the word " directed." 
a-'73 



Mr. TILLMAN. But who is goinp: to interpret that? 

Mr. SPOONEli. It does not need any interpretation. It in- 
terprets itself. 

Mr. TILLMAX. Will the Senator iuteri)ret this lauffuage for 
me from the President's messasjje 

Mr. SPOONER. I am not discnssing the President's message. 
We are not going to vote upon the President's message. 

Mr. TILLMAN. It is the Presiilent's messiige aloiie which has 
given me the painful duty to perform of sjieaking a.s I have to- 
day; and but for the fact that that message has l)een written and 
given a tail which does not corre.spond with its hody and head, I 
never would have uttered a word that I have uttered to-day. 

I want to ask you to please tell me what this language mean.*? in 
the President's message: and I do it for the reason that you of all 
men on either side of this Chamber are possibly better informed, 
or at least equally well informed, on the (juestionof law involved: 

To commit this country now to the rpcopnition of any pnrtiiMilnr provorn- 
ment in Cuba might subject us to embai-r.-is^inu couditiuua of iutcruational 
obligation toward tho organiziition so reooguized. 

Mr. SPOONER. I indorse that, Mr. President, as absolutely 
sound. 

Mr. TILLMAN. I want you to tell me what will be the obliga- 
tions of an international character to which we will be committed 
if we recognize the present government of Cuba? 

Mr. SPOONER. I will get to that in a few momenta. 

Mr. TILLMAN. I will, then, wait until the Senator reaches it. 

'Mr. SPOONER. I will endeavor to satisfy the Senator, if I can. 

Our own Supreme Court say, in Kennett vs. Chambers, referring 
to Texas: 

But it belonged to the Government, and not to individu.il citizens, to de- 
cide when that event had taken place (independence*, and that decision, ac- 
cording to the laws of nations, depended upon th<« question whether she had 
or had not a civil proverument in successful oporutioii. cajiable of performing 
the duties and fulfilling the obligations of an iudciiendent power. It de- 
pended upon the state of the facts and not upon the right which was in 
contest between the parties. 

Lawrence says, page 87: 

The community thus recogrnized must, of course, posfsess a fixed territory, 
within which an organized government rules in civilized fashion, command- 
ing the obedience of its citizens and speaking with authority on their behalf 
in its dealings with other states. 

It is not enough to warrant the recognition of a government as 
an independent power that it has a written constitution; it is not 
enough that it has passed laws or made orders; it is not enough 
that it has adopted a postage stamp; it is not enough that it has 
chosen a pre.sident who is as able and dignified as the President 
of the L'nited States; it is not enough that it has cho.seu a vice- 
president who is a professor of law. That is all very well, but 
that is not enough. It requires more than a i)aper govenj- 
ment; it requires a government in fact; it requires a government 
that governs at home and punisht^s crime through the operation 
of judicial tribunals; that iirotects property; that levies ta.xes. 
A Senator near me suggests, and one that has a ti.xed abode. I do 
not care so much about that, it must ho a government. Mr. 
President, in fact — and that must be made clearly to apin-ar — 
which not only performs all tho functions of a government at 
home, but is able to perform all the functions of a government in 
its relations to other governments. 



28 

I take liberty to read a word from Sir William Veruon Harcoiirt. 
Senators will remember these letters, for they were written during 
the late war upon the question of recognizing the independence 
of the Southern Confederacy, and attracted great attention on 
both sides of the Atlantic. 

While the issue can bo still considered in any degree in ambiffuo, the pre- 
Biimption is necessarily in favor of the former sovereign, and a friendly 
state is bound to exact very conclusive and indisjjutable evidence that the 
Bovereipnty of a government with which it has existing relations over any 
part of its former dominions has been finally and permanently divested. It 
is not at liberty during the pendency of an actual struggle to speculate on 
the result or to assume the probability of the ultimate failure of the ancient 
sovereign, however plausible may be the grounds for such an inference. 
What the claimant to recognition has to show is an accomplished and do 
facto, not a probable or paulo post f uturum, independence. 

Then he says again: 

The rule he propounded was precisely that acted upon by Mr. Canning in 
the case of the South American Republics, viz, that where a doubtful and 
bona fide struggle for supremacy is still maintained by the sovereign power, 
the insurgents jam flagrante bello can not be said to have established a do 
facto independence. 

Mr. TILLMAN. Will the Senator allow me? 
Mr. SPOONER. Then he says in another place, if my friend 
frum South Carolina will permit me: 

When a .sovereign state, from exhaustion or any other cause, has virtually 
and substantially abandoned the struggle for supremacy it has no right to 
complain if a foreign state treat the independence of its former subjects as 
de facto established; nor can it prolong its sovereignty by a mere paper as- 
sertion of right. 

No mortal man can say because of the military methods em- 
ployed in Cuba that the struggle existing between Spain and 
Cuba could be brought to an early end without the intervention 
of the United States. 

Mr. TILLMAN. Now will the Senator allow me? 

Mr. SPOONER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TILLMAN. If France had assumed that attitude toward 
the colonies, where would this Republic be? 

Mr. SPOONER. There is nothing novel about that. 

Mr. TILLMAN. France, if you will excuse me again — I beg 
the Senator's pardon, but I just want to make one observation — 
if France had not established a precedent contrary to that doctrine, 
we would not have gained our freedom; and if we need a prece- 
dent, in Gods name let us establish one. 

Mr. SPOONER. When France recognized the struggling Amer- 
ican Republic, she did not do it so much for love of us as she did 
it because of her hatred against Great Britain. 

Mr. TILLMAN. Have we not enough cause for hating Spain? 

Mr. MASON. If the Senator will permit me, I wish to ask a 
question. 

Mr. SPOONER. Certainly. 

Mr. MASON. Do you think France hated England then any 
more than the American people hated Spain the day after the Maine 
went down? 

Mr. SPOONER. We are not going to war with Spain for hate. 

Mr. MASON. I am. 

Mr. SPOONER. You are, but I am not. 

Mr. MASON. That is one of my reasons. 

Mr. SPOONER. The American people are not going to war 
with Spain for hate. Seventy millions of people, with illimitable 
wealth, proud of being a Christian people, will not wage war 

3273 



29 

against any government on the earth for hate. We are going 
to war with Spain bocauso wo mu.st; wo an* ^,'<.in:,' t<> war with 
Spain because we can not toU-rato any lt.nj;<r Sii:iTu>h nil.- in this 
neighboring ishmd; we are going to war with Simiu bicaiiM'Wo 
can not any longer listen to the crios, which come tloatmg over 
the sea upon every breeze from Cuba, of starving children and 
starving women; we are going to war with Sj)ain, forced into it by 
her, because her rule in Cuba has for many a long year menaced 
our safety, and because we can not tolerate it any lon;,'er; but 
there is no hate in it, no revenge in it. Wo are gouig over there 
to abate a nuisance. [Laughter.] 

Mr. MASON. The Senator does not love the country that made 
the nuisance, does he? 

Mr. SPOONER, Mr. President, I am not here at this hour and 
in this high place to hurl epithets against tlie nation with which 
we are to fight or to exi^ress what I may have in my heart toward 
her by vituperative language. She will liave to settle. The day 
of reckoning has come; our bill of particulars has been presented; 
it is a long list and a sickening list, and the destiny of Cuba at 
last will be worked out. 

Why, Mr. President, one of the grounds on which the United 
States refused to participate in the alliance proposed a great many 
years ago, while Mr. Everett, I think, was Secretary of State — I 
have forgotten the year— invited by France and Great Britain, on 
the application of Spain, to maintain permanently the Spanish 
status in Cuba, was stated to be that the Administration would be 
utterly odious to our people which would enter into a contract with 
those Governments that the Cuban people should not at some time 
obtain their independence. 

I do not put the action of the United States upon any such 
ground as my friend does, although I know his aspiration and his 
love of liberty and his sj^mpathy with all who struggle; but I ven- 
ture to say that with his heart full of tenderness for the Cubans 
in their sufferings and struggles, it is no more tender in its sym- 
pathy for them than are the hearts of those of us who have sat 
silent in this Chamber during all the mouths that the President 
has been walking alone the difficult and wearisome path which has 
led up to this hour. 

Mr. President, it is true that France recognized the Republic, 
but we then had a good deal of a government. We had Giorgo 
Washington, and he was a good deal of a government; we had the 
Continental Congress; we had laws; we had institutions. Our 
seat of Government changed now and then; but that is nothing. 
We had whipped Burgovne at the battle of Saratoga. 

Mr. ALDRK 'If. We captured him. 

Mr. SPOONER. Yes, defeated him and captured him. To 
illustrate the real attitude and purjx'se of France, she made a 
treaty of commerce with us, and it was upon that ground that tho 
English Government declared war against her iind tho Kngliah 
statesmen to this day denounce tliat treaty as a violafiMTi of inter- 
national law upon the subject of recognition; 1 ' .do a 
secret treaty of alliance with us, in which it that 
neither Government should make peace with (..; ..v ; . i..... with- 
out the consent of the other. 

Mr. President, in every court of Europe tho agents of th»j 
Southern Confederacy patiently, earnestly, and prayerfully Hoiij^bt 
the recognition of independence. In every court of Europe tho 
3273 



30 

representatives of the United States as earnestly antagonized it, 
demanding, npon principles of international law, that it could 
not be properly accorded. Every Government of Europe except 
Russia was unfriendly to us and sympathized with the Confed- 
eracy. 

I think that statement is fairly justifiable— perhaps not as to 
Germany, but aa to most of those governments — and not one of 
them recognized the independence of the Confederate States. 
This book is full of utterances by English statesmen giving the 
reasons why they could not, in harmony with international law, 
admit by their action the Southern Confederacy into the family of 

What was the case of the Southern Confederacy? They had a 
government; they had a president, known the whole world over; 
they had a cabinet; they had a congress which enacted laws; they 
had States, each was a sovereignty and enacted laws; they admin- 
istered .iustice through established courts; they had ships upon the 
sea which carried their flag into every neutral port under the sky; 
they had an army in the field commanded by great generals; they 
issued money; they had "postage stamps." 

Mr. TILLMAN. The Cubans have postage stamps, too. [Laugh- 
ter. ] 

Mr. SPOONER. That is all. That government was so strong, 
Mr. President, that there were times when the changing tide of 
battle made the stoutest hearts of the North doubt. It took over 
2,000,000 of men to prevent that government from achieving rec- 
ognition; and I have sometimes thought that if the battle of Get- 
tysburg, which was the pivotal battle of the war, had gone against 
us it might 

Mr. ALDRICH. Oh. no. 

Mr. SPOONER. I say it might have secured a recognition of 
the independence of the* Southern Confederacy by some govern- 
ments abroad. That would have prolonged the struggle, but it 
would not have changed the result. Compare the situation of the 
Confederacy in that day with the condition of Cuba and the prece- 
dents set by the nations of the earth upon our demand and in our 
interest. We are all friends now; there is only one flag now, and 
that is the flag which is going to Cuba; there is only one Govern- 
ment now, but we can not forget— we have no right to forget- 
that upon our demand upon principles of international law, which 
you find asserted everywhere by the representatives of the United 
States, the governments of Europe refused to recognize the inde- 
pendence of the Southern Confederacy. 

Mr. MONEY. Will the Senator permit me to ask him a ques- 
tion? 

Mr. SPOONER. Certainly. 

Mr. MONEY. I want to ask the Senator this question: If any 
one of those European powers at the time the Southern Confeder- 
acy was soliciting an acknowledgment of its independence had 
desired to terminate the war here, and had then concluded to ac- 
knowledge the independence of the Confederate States, what 
would the Senator say of international law on that case? Could 
they not have done that if they had taken the attitude that you 
occupy to-day of putting an end to the contest? 

Mr. SPOONER. That question was discussed, and it is dis- 
cussed by " Historicus " in this book. 
Mr. MONEY. I am not talking about that book. I am asking 
bi73 



31 

the Senator for his owi\ oninion. Allow mo apiin to ask if nny 

European government had seen (it to declaro that it inti n '.i '1 ti 

stop the war between the Foileral and tlie iV>ni. 

•whether or not as a preliminary tlicy wnuhl not : 

edged the independence t>f the Southern Confederal _\ .- i-.. uiu 

Senator believe that or not? 

Mr. SPOONER. That would have been for them to dec id. ; 
and so we have the power 

Mr. MONEY, It is for us to decide to-day. 

Mr. SPOONER. Certainly it is for us to decide. I am only 
arguing that upon principles of international law and upon a prin- 
ciple which was settled by the governments of Europe \i\>un our 
demand, we ought not to violate that precedent, but that wo 
ought to stand by it. 

Mr. DANIEL. Will my honorable friend allow me to ask him 
a question? He is, I think, making a very interesting speech. 

Mr. SPOONER. I feel guilty, if my friend from Virginia will 
allow me to say so, that I have already spoken so long. 

Mr. DANIEL. It has seemed verv short to us. 

Mr. SPOONER. That is very kind. 

Mr. DANIEL. I wanted to call the attention of my honorable 
friend, whose ability as a lawyer I know full well, to the fact 
that his statement overlooks, as it would seem to rao, the point 
as to which recognition would be accorded and the i)oint men- 
tioned in the Presidents message. And that is tliis: Tliat when 
the danger line against a resubjugation is gone, then it is time to 
recognize. The danger line of the Southern Confederacy never 
did go, and, existing, no government recognized her. Has not 
the danger line as to the resubjugation of Cuba gone the moment 
onr flag tloats to the sky? 

Mr. TILLMAN. The President himself acknowledges that. 

Mr. SPOONER. Answering the question of the Senator from 
Virginia [Mr. Daniel] , it is enough to say that the danger line 
has not gone now. 

Mr. DANIEL. I think it is pretty well gone now, when the 
President says it has gone. 

Mr. SPOONER. 1 am no blind follower of any man. Wo are 
to deal with this question as Senators, and to do about it what we 
think is right in the interest of the country and in harmony with 
general principles. When we shall have intervened, when the 
danger line is gone, as it vrill be gone soon, the question will solve 
itself. 

Mr. P*resident, there are very good reasons, and I think very 
strong reasons, why we should adhere stri'-tly to the fvidonco r<^ 
quired of the existence of the elements ' < 

to recognition in this ca^e. Oneofthom 
from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoak] in the mi-L-nu. .ui . 
address which he delivered yesterday, and that i.s, that i : 
Europe are ujion us. To-day. so far as we can see, ni. 
Governments of Eumpe, for whose friendship we shotild care, Iwuk 
with approval upon the conduct of this c^i.se up to thi'; h'>nr. 

Almast everyone of those governments lia.s f:i 
nies, colonies which are liable to insurrectiDU. nn'i 
that those governments are all interest. ' ■> • 
like this should at least stand by the i.r-.' 
adopted upon our demand, anil ."hotdd i. 
haste a provisional government of msurgents. That w u ptoijuat- 



32 

tion which is a matter of interest to every foreign government 
which has outlying colonies. 

We can not afford to signalize onr entry tipon war by violation 
of international law. Wo can not afford to be wrong, Mr. Presi- 
dent. Nations have reputations to gain and lose at the bar of 
jjublic opinion as well as men have reputations to gain and lose 
at the bar of public opinion in a narrower sphere. The world is 
ver)- snipJl in this day. Everything that is done in one part of the 
world is known the next day in everj' other part of the world. 

Almost every thought exjiressed in one part of the world is read 
at breakfast the next morning in the newspapers of every other 
country: and the Government of the United States, strong, pow- 
erful, illimitable in its resources, can not afford to violate in this 
exigency any principle of international law. Let us hew to the 
line. What difference does it make to Cuba whether a republic is 
recognized there to-day or ninety days from to-day? They have 
been struggling for freedom, and freedom is coming. 

Like the negroes' millennium, it " has been a long, longtime on 
the way," but it is coming. They have been strugglmg for a flag of 
their own to float upon the island in place of the Spanish flag. It 
will go up, and I hope, Mr. President, it will go up to stay. I hope 
Cuba— the Republic of Cuba, if that shall be the name — will be 
an exception to the attempts of that race throughout the world to 
establish governments. 1 hope it will be stable; I hope it will be 
free from revolution. 

I hope that coup d'etats of struggling chieftains will be stran- 
gers to them — I hope so; I wish I knew it — but it is a small matter 
to Cuba and the Cubans whether the independence of a govern- 
ment there is recognized to-day or three months hence. It is a 
matter of larger consequence to us whether we set a bad example 
and violate the principles of international law in recognizing a 
government which we all think on these principles is not entitled 
to recognition. All the President states — and the Senator from 
South Carolina read it a few moments ago, and I wish 1 could 
turn to it 

Mr. TILLMAN. I will furnish it to the Senator. 

Mr. SPOONER. On what page? 

Mr. TILLMAN. On page 10. 

Mr. SPOONER. It is as follows: 

To commit this country now to the recognition of any particular povcrn- 
moiit in Cuba mitcht subject us to embarrassing conditions of international 
obligation toward the organization so recognized. In case of intervention 
our conduct would be subject to the approval or disai^proval of such gov- 
ernment. We would bo required to submit to its direction and to assume 
to it the mere relation of a friendly ally. 

Does anyone doubt that? 

Mr. TILLMAN. The mere relation of friendly ally is all we 
are struggling for on this side. 

Mr. SPOONER. We are going to be a friendly ally, not of any 
provisional government, but of the people of Cuba. 

Mr. TILLMAN. The people of Cuba certainly are not as much 
the government as the government which the Senate recognized 
by resolution last year. 

Mr. SPOONER. We are not going to war, with all its burden 

of taxation, with all the desolation it will carry into the homes of 

our country, with all its waste, for war is waste, with all itsblood- 

Bhed and all its horrors, to elevate any particular crowd of men to 

3273 



33 

power. Wo are goin;? to war l)ccause wo miLst, ami a result of It 
shall be freeiloin ami mdepeiuleiu-o to tht* tuonlo of Cuba. 

But the Presiileut. in my ju«l^Tiu>nt, is aV)s«>iut»>lv n.mvt wh«m 
he says that wo shouUl not go tlu-ro shackled 1 ' .aI 

rclatious too >oou creatt'il by 113. When wo r< i- 

visional government as an indopemlent repnbh ■ ,!» 

have we there except by its invitation:* The moincni it is rLiox- 
nized by us it is, so far as we are concerned, an indt-pfmlont and 
equal government. Are wo invited? What right have wo toatay 
there an hour except upon terms prescribid bv itV 

Mr. TILLMAN. If the President will siMul fur this gontlcman 
who has been sent here and lying around hero for three years try- 
ing to get recognition, I am sure he would beg us to go there with 
tears in his eyes. 

Mr. SPOONER. I am sorry my friend should accuse anybody 
of lying around here for three years. [Laughter. ] I beg my 
friend's pardon. I think there has been some of it. I do not 
know to whom he refers. 

Mr. TILLMAN. I am speaking about the envoys of this so- 
called government. 

Mr. SPOONER. We have not recognized any envoys of this 
so-called government. 

Mr. TILLMAN. I know we have not, but the Senator .«aid wo 
had not been invited to Cuba, and I say if we will just semi for 
that man and tell him that we recognize the government, lie will 
ask us to go there, and he has been ready to do so at any time 
within the past two or three years. 

Mr. SPOONER. It is not very long since I read in the paper 
an elaborate interview with the counsel of the so-called Rejiublic 
of Cuba 

Mr. TILLMAN. The counsel of the junta. 

Mr. SPOONER. The junta has been, so far as we know and so 
far as the world knows, the civil political government of the so- 
called Republic of Cuba. They are the people we have hoard 
from, and it is a part of the laws of the so-called Government of 
Cuba that Mr. Estrada Palma, if that is his name 

Mr. TILLMAN. I beg the Senator's pardon. I do not knowit. 

Mr. SPOONER. It is a part of the laws of the so called Gov- 
ernment of Cuba that he is authorized to issue bomls of the so- 
called Republic of Cuba without any limit and to issue paper 
money of the so-called Republic of Cuba without any limit. 
Whether or not he has done it and to what extent I do not know. 
He may have issued millions for aught 1 know. 

Mr. TELLER. I doubt whether the Senator can establish that 
statement. 

Mr. SPOONER. I have not charged it. 

Mr. TELLER. I understood the Senator to make it. 

Mr. SPOONER. I .said for aught 1 know. 

Mr. TILLMAN. The only testimony before the Senate is con- 
tained in the report of the committee, and in that the treasurer 
of the Cubans says only some $100,000 of bonds have been issnetl. 

Mr. SPOONER. I care nothing about that. The grant to 
Tomas Estrada Palma, delegate i)lenipotentiary. found «>n pnjfo 
3G of Senate Document No. lU, Fifty fifth Congress, first session, 
is as follows: 

Second. To contract for one or more loans, the proooodw of triili-li nro to t« 
used in the service of the republic, guarauteolni; Haiti loans with all tho pub- 
3273-3 



34 

lie property, land taxes, custom house duties, present and future, of the said 
rei)ul.lic, issuiug bonds, registered or coupon, for an amount which he may 
deem convenient, payable, as well as the interest, when he may judge it op- 
portune; empowering him also to determine the nominal value of the bonds, 
the interest they earn, condition of the payment of the capital and interest 
which ho may consider most favorable in order to place the said bonds at the 
best price, and also to mortgage them. 

Third. To i.s,sue paper money in the name of the Republic of Cuba for the 
amount which be may think necessary and in the form and conditions which 
he considers most adequate. 

Fourth. To issue po.stage stamps of the denominations which he may con- 
BJder most convenient for the service of the republic. 

This power is conferred upon Mr. Palma by the president and 
his cabinet, which, under the constitution, is the lawmaking 
power. 

I know nothing as to what bonds have been issued or what 
money has been issued. I care nothing about it. I referred to it 
to show how completely the civil government of the Republic of 
Cuba is wherever Tomas Estrada Palma is, which, 1 think, is 
New York. 

And he is authorized to delegate these great powers. 

1 have made no reference to the suspicion that there are bonds 
of the Cuban Kepublic in this coxmtry. That cuts no figure here. 
I am not a suspicious man, Mr. President. I am not a pessimist. 
I am an optimist. I am a pretty general believer in the honesty 
of men and the goodness of women. 

I am not ready to suspect my colleagues or the people with 
whom I associate. I have lived long enough to know that a man 
who is always suspecting the integrity of somebody will bear a 
little watching himself. 

Mr. Rubens is reported to have said— I understand it has been 
qualified, and that is the only invitation we have had, so far as I 
know, from the so-called Republic of Cuba— that if we went there 
without first recognizing the independence of this revolutionary 
party, or the men who on paper are the civil executives of the 
island, though we came to free them, they would turn their guns 
upon us. Of course that was explained afterwards by the state- 
ment that he supposed we meant annexation. I have no doubt at 
all that when we go there, they will all flock to our standard— none 
whatever. 

Why should we encumber ourselves in this intervention by 
recognizing a government of which we know nothing and which, 
when recognized, will be our equal in treaty -making and other 
great powers so far as we are concerned? It is stated that they 
have collected $400,000 of taxes. Perhaps they have, but a gov- 
ernment which in a struggle for liberty lasting for three years can 
collect only $400,000 in taxes does not establish a very firm foun- 
dation for recognition. 

Mr. TELLER. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question? 

Mr. SPOONER. Certainly. 

Mr. TELLER. Will he state to us how much money the Con- 
tinental Congress collected during the contest with Great Britain? 

Mr. SPOONER. Not knowing, I can not say. 

Mr. HOAR. I can answer the question. 

Mr. TELLER. Will the Senator from Massachusetts answer it? 

Mr. HOAR. I have seen within a very short time a statement 
in the handwriting of one of its members of a particular account 
of about $37,000,000 received by the Continental Congress from 
the various States. 
3373 



Mr. TILLMAN. In continental money, which they thL-mselvM 
issueil. 

Mr. TELLER. That money was collected bv the mlonios. 

Mr. HOAR. Unaoubtedlv. 

Mr. TELLER. Not by Cow^vess. 

Mr. HOAR. The Continental Congress had no i".\s. i i., . ...n-t l 
taxes. 

Mr. TELLER. They not only collected, but they borrowed 
money. 

Mr. HOAR. That is another thing. The answer to the S«'na- 
tor's inquiry, in substance, not in phrases merely, is that tho 
Continental Congress had no power to collect taxes. Strictly in 
the way of collecting taxes they collected nothing, but they made 
requisitions upon the States; and nut only did they nnUvo reciuisi- 
tions upon the States, but the States expended of themselves tho 
moneys which raised, equipped, and armed the Continental sol- 
diers. 

Mr. TELLER. That is true. When the question was whether 
or not we had a Natiunal (Government, how could foreign govern- 
ments determine it if we did not collect taxes? We did collect an 
inifinitesimal amount; I do not know how much: a triHe. 

Mr. HOAR. We not only had a National Government, but wo 
had thirteen national governments. 

Mr. TELLER. The question was whether we had one National 
Government. 

Mr. HOAR. We were conducting a war by a confederation of 
thirteen nations, all sovereign, all allied, and all declaring them- 
selves independent. 

Mr. SPOON ER. The Republic of Cuba, so called, when you 
look at its constitution, embraces the Island of Cuba from end to 
end. It is not pretended that the so-called Republic of Cuba ha.s 
control— and that control is peculiar— of more than two provinces, 
I think it is. There is another government in Cuba which con- 
trols the rest of the island which on paper is '-the Rej)ublic of 
Cuba."' One of the foundation principles in relation to the rec- 
ognition of the independence of a state is that it shall have fixed 
boundaries. Is it not idle to say that the Republic of Cuba is an 
established government with tixed boundaries? It docs not con- 
trol, so far as I know, a single city. It does not control or hold a 
single seaport— not one. 

My friend, the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Forakeh]. said tho 
other day in his very eloquent speech that Switzerlar.d did not 
control a seaport. Neither does Colorado. Switzerland is in tho 
interior; but here is an island republic, so called: and think of an 
island republic claiming recognition as a republic which has not 
a single port nor a ship— not one! 

But, Mr. President, the conflict, although it is a peculiar one. 
is still raging. Is there anyone here bold enough to s;jy that if we 
leave them alone over there they can expel the power of Spain? 
The rebellion or insurrection might be continued indetinilely, b»'- 
cause they are fighting Spain a good deal on the principle that 
"Captain Jack ' fought the trfjoi s of the United Stales in the lava 
beds. They do not give open liattle. 

It is a wise and masterly strategy, but the fact remains that 

there are 70,U00 Spanish troops. There is another fact. Senators 

say Spain is exhausted— that is hardly true- and if left ah.no 

would abandon sovereignty over the island of Cuba. Wo aro 

5273 



36 

spending a vast amount of money to prepare the United States to 
meet an " exhausted country," if she is exhausted. It was said 
by Sir William Vernon Harcourt: 

It is quite clear that one of the most essential elements in the status of the 
claimant to i-ecopiiition is that its limits should be intelli{n''ly defined. I do 
not say that the lioundary line need be laid down with scientific accuracy, 
but at'all events that it should be understood in a much clearer manner than 
It can be yet said to be defined as between the South and the North. 

But the war is still going on. I have a letter here from General 
Gomez, which I wish to read: 

Mr. Oucsada has a letter from General Gomez, under date of March 9, 
•which allows how hopeful— 

Not how assured — 

he is of success, and how even then he spoke of the utter futility of attempt- 
ing negotiations with Spain. A portion of the letter is as follows: 

"'This province (Santa Clara), as well as Santiago de Cuba and Puerto 
Principe, is ours. Tlie enemy has departed, ceasing military operations and 
abandoning the garrison and forts which constituted its base of operations. 
Days, weeks, and months pass without a column of troops appearmg within 
our radius ot action, which is of many leagues. In the conditions in which 
we are it is my opinion that what we need to end the war quickly are cannon 
and a great deal of dynamite, so that we can expel them by fire and steel 
from the towns. 

Nobody could live on those devastated plains. Death and starva- 
tion have held absolute sway over them. 

"Notwithstanding the opinion of the optimists, I adhere to the idea that we 
will never make Spain come to terms but in that manner— 

By guns and dynamite and esi^elling Spain from the towns — 
and that it is a loss of time and very dangerous to enter into any negotia- 
tions. We must fight them vigorously and unceasingly in order to force 
what we will have, and we will surely obtain it in time." 

Mr. TELLER. Will the Senator allow me to add to that now 
what the President says about it? 
Mr. STEWART. Read it. 
Mr. SPOONER. Yes. 
Mr. TELLER. The President, in his message to us, says: 

The long trial has proved that the object for which Spain has waged the 
war can not be attained. The fire of insurrection may flame or may smolder 
with varying seasons, but it has not been and it is plain that it can not be 
extinguished by present methods. 

Mr. SPOONER. Oh, yes; the fire of insun-ection smoldered 
and flamed in the same way for ten years, but it did not result 
in the independence of Cuba. It did not result in expelling the 
sovereignty of Spain. I am told that Mr. Quesada stated before 
the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that if the United States 
should not intervene, he thought the insurgents might win their 
independence in twelve years. But that is not independence 
now. That is a struggle for independence. That is v/hat General 
Gomez says in this letter. 

But it is said they collect taxes. The " taxes " are levied and 
assessed in the most arbitrary way by "officers" of the "treas- 
ury," and they are enforced under the following "laws:" 

Art I According to article 18 of the constitution and the decree of the 
general in chief of the ~'Oth of September last, the military chiefs shall give 
the necessary aid to the officers of the treasury for the better fulfillment of 
their duties. „ , , ., , i 

Art. II. With the aid of the armed forces, they will proceed to the destruc- 
tion of those plantations, whatever be their nationality, which will refuse to 
pay the taxes decreed by the government of the republic— Se?ia?e Document 
iVo. 10, Fifty-first Congress, first session, page 19. 
327.3 



37 

Th-it mav be all riL'ht for a military government, but it hardly 
answers'^ m^Jiren^ent in this age o t a civU J;0---- ^^^^^^^^^^^ 
to recognition as au inclepen.lent state. It is not a ^'l^^*^™"r 
which so far as wo know, aammisters law. protects propel t> , or 
meets out justice through juilicial tribunals. 

There is another thing about it. General Lee who ought to 
know 'f anyone should know, what there »^ to the so-ca led ro^ 
nubric, estitied before the Committee on ^o^^''-^\^^^]l' "^^'^ '^^[}\l 
Senate upon this subject. He made some remarks that are not in 
the testimony, I am told, but he says on page i)4d: , , . „ 

I have nov"- thought that the insurKeuts bad anything except the skeleton 

'Ter!ainlyhe"had better facilities for accurate observation ^nH 
^ Mr 'mSon" "{VinVhe Senator permit me to ask him a hucs- 



tion; 



Mr- flTsON^'^Did noJeinoral Lee also tes1.ify that his rela^ 
ti^iis'were not wiTh the insurgents; that bis relations were with 
the Government to which he was accredited.^ 

Hi W^^T'kS.Sf.oM not .poa. with any knowleCse, 

'''iri.^gs-§ir 'i S"we-:^'t.?tTn^;^.?e„'-oS" „ ... ■■ ... 

public of Cuba." 

Mr- SPOON^ER^VIhould not object to that. Of course bis re- 
Ht^ons ^^^?e noTwich the so-called Republic of Cuba, because 
theie 'vas not anv government to which we could send a con.su . 
Thev h-fve no i teriiational relations, as the Senator from Massa- 
clmse ts [Mr Hoak] says, with anybody. We want better ey - 
If ce thit the peopli of Cuba have a government capable of dis- 
charging in S^ duties and of discharging the functions of 
f/ovefnment at home before we commit this Government tn ,ai ul- 
^^ -^ion of it into the family of nations. But General Lee las 
had vastly better opportunities for learning what there is to this 

^T'crn^ioVe'scaJeXe^c^Sclusion that if we go there, having.first 
reJo'^nized the independence of the so-called republic, recognizing 
]^Sf^ty ft^s as^a t-at^^makuig^ower ->a cthei . ise. 

rnfmSdSs'l'i^bS^-eshaiTha;^^^ 

H^HS?^rt^:vSn^^^ 

Xntv MrPiv-ident it is said that we must lecognize the inde- 
,..nrnceof theRepuulic of Cuba or become liable by intevvention 
R^rtff debts of Smn based upon the liypothecated revenues of 
rnha I kno\^n little about the Spanish debt, either as t.) its 
Cuba, i Kno\\ ^ ^i^> ;/, j.^ j^ j^ s-i.so.dOO.OOU: others say it la 

So°o«:Z""-.lu^rk'S,w,"LVl have round „o one to inform 



3273 



38 

me. Those bonds are Spanish bonds, I am told. I assume, of 
course, they are not the obligation of any government but the 
Spanish Government. Whether they are based upon a hypothe- 
cation of the revenues of Cuba alone, or the revenues of Cuba with 
other Spanish revenues, I do not know. 

It might make a difference as a matter of law as to the liability 
of the government of Cuba when one shall have been established. 
The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Turpie) seemed to think yester- 
day that our recognizing the independence of the "Republic of 
Ciiba" would shield it from any obligation to discharge the debts 
of the Spanish Government based upon the hypothecation of 
Cuban revenue. 

How could it? I do not know that any Cuban or Spanish bonds 
are held in the United States; I have never seen any, but it is 
stated that they are held in Germany, in France, and perhaps in 
Great Britain. How would our recognition of the so-called 
Republic of Cuba have anything to do with the question of their 
obligation to discharge the Spanish war debt? Would Germany 
be bound by our recognition of the Republic of Cuba? Would 
Great Britain be bound by our recognition of the Republic of 
Cuba, Would France be bound? Not at all. 

Nobody would be bound but the United States, and if Germany 
or Great Britain or France, not having recognized the so-called 
Republic of Cuba, saw fit to insist that it or any government es- 
tablished there was liable to pay to the extent at least of the 
hypothecated revenue the debts due to a British subject or a Ger- 
man subject or a French subject, how long would those Govern- 
ments be bound by our decision on a question of fact? Not a 
moment. The fact that we recognized her sovereignty would make 
no difference. There are no strictly legal liabilities of nations. 
Nations can not be sued. The sovereign can levy taxes with which 
to pay. The sovereign can repudiate, and if the sovereign has the 
strength, it can maintain that position. Such debts are only col- 
lectible at the cannon's mouth. 

Mr. MONEY. Will the Senator from Wisconsin permit me to 
ask him a question? I do not want to interrupt the Senator with- 
out his consent. 

Mr. SPOON ER. The Senator can not ask me a question with- 
out interrupting me, but I permit it. 

Mr. MONEY. I beg the Senator's pardon. 

Mr. SPOONER. No; I permit it. 

Mr. MONEY. Does the Senator state to the Senate as a lawj'er 
that the United States, if it assists in driving the Spanish from 
the island and establishing a free, stable, and independent gov- 
ernment there, will in any way become responsible for Spanish 
bonds because the revenues of Cuba have been hypothecated to 
that purpose? 

Mr. SPOONER. I have not said anything of the kind. 

Mr. MONEY. Do I understand the Senator to say that if the 
Republic of Cuba should be acknowledged and should win her in- 
dependence, she would be responsible in any way? 

Mr. SPOONER. That is a question of law and the power of 
other governments. 

Mr. MONEY. That is why I ask the Senator. I acknowledge 
his eminent ability, and I should really like to have an opinion. 

Mr. SPOONER. I have never made profession that I am an 
International lawyer. 
8273 



39 

Mr. MONEV. Just as the Senator is. 

Mr. SPOONER. I have not foniul in ilic lux.ks, as lar as my 
iuvestigatioiiH have gone, and I have only h^okotl into it for niysclf. 
a satisfactory statement njion the iiuestion, I tliink there niiKhv, 
as I said a moment afi;o, possibly be a difference if the obli^^ations 
of Spain were based solely upon the hyputliecation of the ruveniies 
of Cuba from what it would be if that were only a pjirt of the 
security; but that is no matter now. It has been my opinion, and 
I will proceed to answer the Senator's question, that the Cuban 
Republic, or whatever government is established by the C'ubiins, 
would not be liable for any part of the Spanish war debt, even 
based upon a hypothecation, and solely upon a hypothecation, of 
Cuban revenues, and 1 will say whv. 

Mr. MONEY. Very good. 

Mr. SPOONER. They are the obligations of Spain, as I under- 
stand it. They are not a mortgage upon the Ci;ban people. They 
are not a mortgage, strictly speaking, or secured by a mortgage, 
upon the territory of Cuba. It is a Spanish debt secured by 
])ledge of revenues which can only be collected by the exercise of 
Spanish sovereigntv. 

Mr. MONEY, lam obliged to the Senator for his answer. 

Mr. GRAY''. I should like to ask the Senator from Wisconsin 
whether he has found anywhere in the books any allusion to the 
doctrine of international subrogation for the debts that are sup- 
posed to be based on the hypothecated revenues of a conquered 
territory, except when the territory has been absorbed by the 
country which is sought to be made liable. Is there any other 
ground':* 

Mr. SPOONER. That is not quite clear. 

Mr. GRAY. I should like to hear the Senator as to whether he 
has found any such allusion. 

Mr. SPOONER. I do not remember to have done so. I wish 
to be through. If the Spanish obligation or pledge is to pay the 
bonds, principal or interest, out of Cuban revenue, every man 
who took a bond must have taken it with notice, it seems to me, 
that he depended for payment out of the hypothecated funds upon 
the ability of Spain to continue her sovereignty, because, as I said 
a moment ago, the collection of these revenues is only an exercise 
of sovereignty, and if Spain lost her sovereignty over the Island 
of Cuba, she would of course lose her power to realize or pay the 
revenues pledged. 

Mr. GRAY. The Senator did not quite catch my remark. Al- 
low me to restate it. It is that there is nowhere in the books, so 
far as I know, and I ask him whether he has read to the contrary, 
any suggestion of such a liability except where the country sought 
to be made liable absorbs the territory. We do not expect to 
absorb it. 

Mr. SPOONER. No: of course where there is annexation, ab- 
sorption, you take it cum onere you take it with its burden of 
debt. That is different from revolution. That is different from 
an acquisition of title by war or conquest. That is an acquisition 
by agreement, as in the case of Texas. Where we ac(iuire terri- 
tory by such means, we take it subject to its indebtedness. When 
my friend from Ohio [Mr. FokakkkI read from Hall tlie other 
(lay a statement a.s to liability which follows absorption, he read 
a principle which I think no one would dispute. 

But I beg him to remember, unless I am in the wrong, that that 



40 

is not this case. "We do not intend to absorb the Island of Cuba. 
We do not intend to annex the Island of Cuba. We do not intend, 
I trust, for indemnity or anything else, to appropriate a dollar of 
the revenues of the Island of Cuba. 

Mr. FORAKER. The Senator from Wisconsin will remember 
what I said was predicated upon a question asked me by the Sen- 
ator from West Virginia [Mr. Elkins] , which did involve the 
idea that if we were to displace the Spanish Government and es- 
tablish a stable government of out own upon that island, either 
our own Government or some other government, we would be 
responsible for it. -, ■, . 

Mr. SPOONER. No, Mr. President, I never have heard that 
yet. The Senator from West Virginia may have said 

Mr. FORAKER. No; ho did not say that. I asked him if that 
was not what he had in his mind; and it was upon that theory that 
I read the authority referred to. 

Mr. ELKINS. It was not in my mind. I do not wish the Sen- 
ator to misstate my record. I did not ask the question as stated. 

Mr. FORAKER. If I may be allowed 

Mr. SPOONER. Certainly. 

Mr. FORAKER. I will say to the Senator from West Virgmia 
that I did not undertake to repeat what his question was, but I 
said that he asked me a question which gave rise to the discussion. 

Mr. SPOONER. The authority which the Senator from Ohio 
read was an authority which, as I understand it, has nothing to 
do with this case, and that authority is as follows: 

When a state ceases to exist by absorption in another state, the latter in 
the same way is the iuhoritor of all local rights, obligations, and property. 

There is no doubt about that. That is utterly inapplicable to 
this case, because we are not proposing to absorb Cuba or to an- 
nex Cuba. We are proposing out of a duty to humanity and for 
self -protection to help free Cuba. We are not even proposing to 
establish a government of our own there or by our dictation . We 
simply propose, while occupying Cuba, to afford the people of 
Cuba a fair opportunity to establish an independent government 
of their own. . 

Mr. ALLEN. Will the Senator permit me a question? 

Mr. SPOONER. Certainly. . 

Mr. ALLEN. The bonded indebtedness of Cuba is about $ul9,- 
000,000 in round numbers. 

Mr. SPOONER. You do not mean Cuba. 

Mr. ALLEN, I mean Cuba. 

]\lr. SPOONER. Oh, no! ,.,,., 

Mr. ALLEN. Yes; I am correct. The Spanish indebtedness 
of Cuba, which is kept separate, amounts to $519,000,000. All of 
that bonded indebtedness was issued before the war now m prog- 
ress, with the exception of about $175,000,000. What will become 
of that portion of the bonded indebtedness issued before the break- 
ing out of hostilities? 

Mr. SPOONER. That is just what I have been discussing and 
would have been through with but for the interruption. 

Mr ALLEN. The Senator was speaking about the indebted- 
ness that has been issued— the Spanish war debt. I am now speak- 
ing of that portion of the indebtedness that existed before the war. 

Mr. SPOONER. I do not care whether it be a war debt or 
what kind of a debt it is; upon the Senator's statement it is a debt 

3273 



41 

of Spain. It is an obligation of the Spanish Government. It is 
no obligation of the Cuban Government, for there never lias been 
any, as I understand it. My propositinn was eimidy this: Of 
course if it is not based upon or Hecuri'd by a hypothecation of 
Cuban revenues there can be no question about it' 

If it is secured by a hypothecation of Cuban r^'venues, it is de- 
pendent upon tlie continued sovereignty of Spain in Cuba to 
enable her to sequestrate those revenues and to ]iay them over 
to the creditors. And that bond was subject to tliis condition, 
although not written in it by the hand of man, made a part of it 
by a higher law than any man or set of men can enact, tliat Spam 
should so conduct herself, should so exercise bcr sovereignty in the 
Island of Cuba, that in the sight of God and in the light of the 
civilization of the century she might be permitted to continue it. 

That she has not, nobodj- hero disputes; and it has seemed to 
me very much like this case, because the princi])le which imderlies 
those obligations — they are not international obligations— is very 
much the principle which underlies the obligations between in- 
dividuals sometimes. If one owns a flat and mortgages the 
issues, rents, and profits — the income of it — for twenty-five years 
to the Senator from Rhode Island, and he makes a pesthouse of it 
and it becomes infected .so that it is a menace to the health of the 
whole city, and the public interest and the public safety require 
that it should be battered down, and the municipality batters it 
down, would the municipality be liable for the debt? 

Jlr. President, there is an authority which I have here, but will 
not take the time to read. I will cite it. It is found in Hall's 
International Law, pages 243 and 244, including the elaborate note. 
This seems, I think, to clearly sustain the proposition. 

There is another principle about it. It is stated by Mr. Theo- 
dore S. Woolsey. He states that — 

There is anotlier extreme case where a chaufro of government may dissolve 
prior oblifiations. It is wherea despotical covfriimunt has contracted debts 
against a nation attempting to recover its liberties. The Government is, de 
facto, in posse.'ision of authority, and thus its acts are lawful; nevertheless, 
obligations entered into to suu.iu-jrate tlie peojile must be regarded in this 
extreme case as pertaining to the government alone, and not as resting on 
the people. 

But I have been imperfectly and hastily discussing the question 
whether obligations of Spain, based in part upon hypothecated 
revenues of Cuba, would be transferred to and be a debt of the 
new government. That would not depend upon the time when it 
became independent or when it was recognized, but upon the guns 
and aggressiveness of the nation or nations asserting the responsi- 
bility. Our action can not, I think, as I have stated, affect the 
question one way or the other. 

But, Mr. President, I have been utterly tmable to see what differ- 
ence it can make, so far as any possible responsibility of the United 
States is concerned, whether we recognize the independence of the 
so-called Cuban Republic now or recognize the independence of 
a government later. Upon what theory could we be said to l>e 
responsible? Only upon this distinct ground, that having inter- 
vened wrongfully by force of arms to aid the Cubans in expelling 
the Si>aniards, we had helped to take the pledge from reach of 
Spani.sh sovereignty, and therefore had rendered ourselves re.>^ponsi- 
ble for the debt, in whole or in part. 

That principle would be just as strong, if there were anythinij 
3273 



42 

in It at all, which there is not, when applied to us if we recognized 
the so-called Cuban Republic before we go in there and help drive 
Spain out as it would if we help the Cubans drive out the Spanish 
sovereignty and then recognize a republic. We are not going 
there wrongfully, to begin with, and the suggestion of possible 
responsibility we repudiate at the outset and forever. 

But, Mr. President, what if our intervention in Cuba, with the 
inevitable expulsion of Spanish sovereignty from that island, 
would bring to ns an assertion by some other nation of moral re- 
sponsibility for this debt? What of it? Could we listen to the 
feeble wail of the starving baby, and the awful cry of the starv- 
ing mother, be mindful of all the horrors rife in that island, so 
near to us, take pencil in hand, work out the possible cost, and 
then fold our arms, turn our backs, and let the history of mis- 
rule, oppression, insurrection, savagery, with constant menace and 
cost to us, go indefinitely on? No; that is not the spirit of our 
people. There is no dollar mark on our flag. 

An intervening power must count the cost, and we will have 
counted the cost. We can not stand it any longer, and the nations 
of tlie earth have no right to expect it of us. 

The authority for intervention is ample and clear, and the right 
of intervention is justified by the facts and warranted by interna- 
tional law. 

The rule, of course, is against the right of one State to intervene 
in the affairs of another, the general principle being that every 
nation is to be permitted to manage its own affairs, and to work 
out its own destiny. The last hundred years, however, have been 
filled with interventions, some on high grounds and for noble pur- 
poses, others upon the low plane of selfish purpose. 

Almost every government has exercised the right, upon one 
ground or another. 

In Mannings Law of Nations, by Sheldon Amos, it is said: 

The only grounds on which interference with the affairs of a foreign state 
would now be held capable of justification are: 

(1) The breach or attempted breach of a subsisting treaty, as where a state 
is restricted by treaty in the amount of its armaments, or in the quality of 
its military defenses; or else (2) the continuance of a revolutionary state of 
affairs in the foreign state under circumstances in which it seems highly prob- 
able that, without such interference, either public order can never be re- 
stored at all or can only bo restored after such sufferings to humanity and 
such injuries to surrounding states as obviously overbalance the general 
evil of all interference from without. 

These words read as if they were written for this case. T read 
from an English edition, published in 1875, and at the foot of the 
page from which I have just quoted, referring to the language 
used by President Grant on the attitude of the United States to 
the Cuban revolution, December 7, 1874, is this note: 

The deplorable strife in Cuba continues without any marked change in 
the relative advantages of the contending forces. The insurrection contin- 
ues, but Spain has gained no superiority. Six years of strife give the insur- 
rection a significance which can not be denied. Its duration and the tenacity 
of its advance, together with the absence of the manifested power of repres- 
sion on tlie part of Spain, can not be controverted, and may make some posi- 
tive step.s on the part of other powers a matter of self necessity. 

We are the only "other power,"' as the island lies at our door. 
And now, after the lapse of many years, including three years of 
a new revolution, we are ol)liged to " take positive steps as a mat- 
ter of self-necessity." 



43 
Professor Lawrence, at page 120, wi'ites of it thus: 

In tho opinion of some writers interventions undortnkon on the pround of 
humanity and iutervontioiis for tlio juu-jioso of putting a 8t<>ii to relijtious 
persecutions art' also leRul. Hut wo avu nut von tu re to brine tlnMU witliln 
the ordinary rules of international law. it certainlv d<K>s nut lay down that 
cruelty on the i>art of a government renders it liniilo to lie deprived of its 
freetlo'm of action, nor does it impose upon sst^itos the obli^'ation of prcvent- 
ins< either ordinary U-irlwirity on the part uf their neiKhtmrs or thai special 
kind of inhumanity which takes tin- form of roli^;ious i)ersecution. 

At the same time, it will not condi-mn such interventions if tlu'y are under- 
taken with a single eye to the object in view and without ulterior considera- 
tions of eelf-interest iind ambition. Should the cruelty l>e so lontj contiiniod 
and KO revolting that the Wst instincts of human nature are outrapred by it, 
and should an opportunity arise for brinKinjf it to an eml and removing its 
cHU.se without addinjj fuel'to tho flame of the contest, there Ls nothing in tho 
law of nations wliich will c-undemn as a wron^rdoer the state whicli sti-i)s for- 
ward and undertakes tlio necessary intervention. Each cabO must bo judged 
on its own morita 

There is a prcat difference between declarinpr a national act to be lepal, 
and therefore part of the order under which states have con.sontod to live, 
and allowing it to be morally blameless as an cxcootion to ordinary rules. I 
have no ripht to enter my neitrhbor's parden without his consent; but if I 
saw a child of his robbed and illtreated in it by a tramp, 1 should throw cer- 
emony to tho winds and rush to tho rescue without waitinfj to a.sk for per- 
mission. In tho same way a state may, in a preat emer;,'ency, set aside 
everyday restraints; and neither in its case nor iu the corresponding case 
of the individual will blame be incurred. 

But, nevertheless, the ordinary rule is prood for ordinary cases, which, 
after all. make up at least ninety-nine hundredths of life. To say that it is 
no rule because it may laudably bo if^nored once or twice in a jionoration is 
to overturn order in an attemjjt to exalt virtue. An intervention to put a 
stop to barbarous and abominable cruelty is "a hiijh act of policy over and 
above tho domain of law." It is destitute of technical legality, but it may be 
morally right and even praiseworthy to a high degree. 

The grounds for intervention are abundant. It is too narrow a 
statement of the case to confine it to tho horrors which have 
shocked tho world during the present insurrection. We have no 
right to forget the ten years of unavailing struggle, attended by 
indescribable atrocities. During thirteen years since the close of 
our war this island, lying almost in sight of our shores, has been the 
scene of insurrection and of monstrous horrors, and in the inter- 
vening j-ears of nominal peace the promises of Spain of govern- 
mental reforms have been broken, and misrule there has been so 
oppressive in every way as not only to justify but compel renewed 
insurrection. 

The arraignment of Spain contained in the President's message 
differs not a great deal from the arraignment contained in Gen- 
eral Grant's messages. Secretary Fish, in his dispatch to the 
Spanish minister upon the Virginius case, dated April 18, 1874, 
sums up the then situation as follows: 

For five years the policy of repression, of confiscation, of summary execu 
lion of political prisoners, of refusal of reforms, of denial of self government, 
of maintenance of slavery, iu short, tiic policy of violence; and force, has held 
sway in Cuba. It is understood that the insurrection calls to-day for as many 
troo'ps to keep it in restraint as were necessary in l.^CiH. 

During these five years this Government has watched events in Cuba, per- 
haps not always patiently, but certainly always impartially. It h.as ,seeu 
vessels sailing under its tlag intercei)ted on the high seas and carried into 
Spanish ports. It has seen tho property of its citizens embargoed and their 
revennes sequestrated; and when it has complained, it has l)eei) met by i)rom- 
ises of restoration; but tho oflicial a.ssurances of Spain in that res]>ect have 
in most cases not been complied with. It has seen its citizens t-ondemned to 
dcAth under the form of military law, and executed in violation of the treaty 
obligations of Spain. It has seen other citizens of the United States mobbed 
in the street.'* of Havana for no other reason than that they were citizens of 
the United States, or the accidental circumstaiK.-o of tho color of the dress. 
It has stretched its powers and interfered with tho liberties of its citizens 
in order to fulfill all its duties as a sovereign nation towaril tho jiower wliich 
in Cuba was tolerating the evil influences of reaction, and of slavery, and of 
3273 



44 

"the deplorable and pertinacious tradition of despotism" referred to by the 
minister of transmarine affairs, all of which made the things complained of 
possible. It has refrained from the assertion of its rights, under the hope, 
derived from the constant assurances of tlio Government of Spain, that lib- 
erty and self government would be accorded to Cuba, that African slavery 
would be driven out from its last resting place in Christendom, and that the 
instruments of the Casino Espanol would be restrained in tlieir violence, and 
made to obey law and to respect the treaty obligations of Spain. 

All tins and more, intensified a thousandfold by the infamous 
policy of Weyler, have we borne during the last three years. 

The testimony of Senators upon this floor from personal obser- 
vation as to the starvation and merciless savagery prevailing in 
that island will be a haunting and horrible memory. 

This people has borne it, and borne it, and forborne, through 
many, many years, patient almost, if not quite, to the point of 
inhumanity. 'This Government has shrunk from becoming in- 
volved in a war with Spain. 

We have policed our waters, repressed our citizens, at great 
cost, and we have suffered incalculable loss from interrupted and 
paralyzed commerce. 

The great Republic must have suffered in the estimation of the 
Christian world, that it could tolerate, without intervention, such 
tyranny and atrocities. 

We have stood by, refusing to let any other government inter- 
vene in Cuba because of our national policy, which we can not 
and will not surrender. 

We can not longer be inactive. We have been forced to the 
conclusion that Spain, by her rule, not only justifying but com- 
pelling insurrection, with its accompaniment of cruelty, corrup- 
tion, lust, loot, starvation, and blood, can not in the future govern 
that island by different methods, or with different results, than ^ 
those which have characterized her past dominion. 

She has violated treaty obligations, destroyed the property of * 
American citizens, and trampled in the most reckless and auda- .O 
cious manner upon their rights. 

Senators here complain of Mr. Cleveland for his course in rela- 
tion to Cuba. I do not. I assume he had a good reason for his 
inaction, just as General Grant had for his. 

One thing seems clear. Having reference to the past and to the 
present, we can not tolerate it any longer. 

We can not have indemnity for all the past, but we can and will 
have security for the future. 

Now, Mr. President, a word about the Maine. The discussion 
of the case by the Committee on Foreign Relations is of great 
ability. But there is one striking fact which has been overlooked 
and which impresses me greatly. The destruction of the Maine, 
while it may not be so established as a governmental act, and 
J am not ready to say that it is. as to warrant us in declaring war 
against Snain, to my mind furnishes upon a well-established 
principle of international law abundant ground for armed inter- 
vention and for insisting upon the installation of a government 
in Cuba which for all time, independent of Spain, shall be able to 
discharge its international duties. 

I have before me the report of the Spanish court, with the evi- 
dence upon which it is based. The Maine was at rest in the har- 
bor of Havana at 'J.40 in the evening, when everybody on board 
of the ship was in fancied security, as they had a right to be, for 
if anywhere in the world an American sailor may rightfully feel 
3273 



45 



secure one would think it wouUl be on his own ship, under onvQa^, 
on a visit of peaco to a friendly harbor. In a moment slie was 
Z explosion ^trfnsf^^ from' a ma^M,ifK-ent .hip of war into a 

Krcat twisted metallic burial case. Of course our authorities oi- 
dered a court of iiuiuiry. , , , . . ^ i 

That court, composed of officers of unimpeachablointeRnty and 
of conceded ability, proceeded with the i"'!"iry. That court it 
must be remembered, was hampered in its in^'^f.^'^^t'""- //^^f.J 
in a foreign port. It had not power. I bel.eve-tho Senator from 
New llampsiiire fMr. Chandukr] can tell me if 1 am wronK- 
even at Key West to compel the attendance of witnesses, iho 
invest^^ition was made. They examined such witnesses as they 
couUl tfnd. and after carefully exploring the whole sub.iect made 
report to the Government that the Maine was exploded by an ex- 
Sal force, and expressly excluded accident or any negligence 
upon the pai-t of the captain, his officers, and the men under his 

'^''snahi%f course, anticipated that investigation and that report, 
and at once instituted an inciuiry of her own conducted on her 
territory, where she could call any witness and compel lus attend- 
ance and promptly transmitted the report with the testimony to 
the Go?eriment of the United States. Our report, if it so found, 
would be a prima facie establishment of the fact of external ex- 
plosion. It was doubtiess expected that the Spanish report would 
make a prima facie showing that it was an accident, and thereby 
an international issue would be made for trial before some court of 
experts to be appointed as agreed, by whose findmg of fact bpam 
very readily agrees to be bound in advance. 

Mr President, 1 have read all of the evidence taken by the Span- 
ish court. I have gone carefully through the report of the Spanish 
court There is one phase of it which to my mind more than any- 
thing else is inculpatory. It has been stated by Captain feigsbee 
that a dozen men might have dropped a buoyant mine under the 
Maine and not have been discovered. That won d have been a 
mine of course, which would have exploded only by contact. It 
would not have been one of the mines to be discharged by an elec- 
tric flash from the shore. The Spanish court deals with that 
question, and I want to read to the Senate what at says about it: 

Before proceeding to the consideration of other data, I think it well to re- 
call to vourcxceUem-v-s enlightened mind the phenomena which accompany 
the exXsion of a. submarine mine, meaning' thereby what is known under 

ally. 

That is a subterranean mine as distinguished from a submarine 
mine. 

The iCTiition of the torpedo must ,,ecc..snii7y have been produced either by 
fo//.«^o for by an ehctriail discharyc, and as the state of the sea and »'«' 't"»d 
dtlnTaZwo/anym..iion in tlic vessel the hyfothesi^ of a cotl.^ton at that 
moment must be rejected. 

The Spanish court here refutes the idea that the explosion could 
have been caused by a buoyant mine or by any tori>cdo resulting 
pom contact icith the shix). 

And wc must consider that of an rleetric nmentgen t bj, a f"f''<^jy^irv\from 
a statio^J hut no traees or siyns of any wire or station have been discove,ed. 
3273 



46 

We take it to be established that that ship was destroj'ed bj- an 
external explosion, as our board finds— by the explosion of a'sub- 
marine mine. The Senator from Colorado [Mr. WolcottJ , ahvavs 
eloquent, never more eloquent, never more patriotic than he was 
to-daj', stated the truth when he said that the explosion of the 
Maine had had infinitely to do with the situation which has led us 
up to the verge of war. Our people believe it Avas destroyed as 
found by our court. 

Mr. President, no one could know better the efTect upon an 
already intense situation of the explosion of the Maine than the 
Spanish Government. The destruction of our ship and men in 
her harbor must, all things considered, have given her officials 
grave concern. It was of the utmost consequence to Spain to 
establish that the Maine was exploded by accident and exempt 
herself and her officials from the suspicion that the ship was ex- 
ploded by a submarine mine, over which she was moored by Span- 
ish direction. It was easy for Spain to make that proof if it were 
a fact. Mr. President, it was easy. How? Does anvone doubt 
if there was a submarine mine under the Mai)te that the Spanish 
officials knew it? Does anyone suppose for a moment that there 
are mines in the harbor of Havana unknown to tlie military au- 
thorities? Does anyone suppose for a moment that there are miners 
in any of the harbors along our coast unknown by chart and ac- 
curate location to our authorities? It can not be possible, for they 
would be useless if the mine is to be exploded by electricity. 

I repeat, if there was a mine, Mr. President, in the harbor of 
Havana, the Spanish authorities knew it. If there was no mine 
under the Maine, they knew it. If they could have proven that 
there was no mine there, God knows they would have been swift 
to prove it. But go through this evidence and vou will not find 
a single witness called, and I ask my friend from' Minnesota [Mr. 
Davis], who has examined it carefully, too, if I am not correct— 
you will not find a single witness called to establish the negative 
fact, entirely itnder their control, beyond our reach, that there vas 
no mine under the Maine. The burden of proving the negative 
was upon them, for the evidence to prove it was entirelv in their 
possession. 

It is a familiar principle of law that when one has in his posses- 
sion exculpatory evidence and fails to use it, or attempts to make 
a false issue upon it, it is warrant for the gravest suspicion at least; 
and I would have been infinitely more satisfied with the situation 
in regard to the 3Iaine if the Spanish court had called the author- 
ities of the Spanish army in Havana and had shown that there 
were no mines in the harbor or none under our ship. 

Mr. President, if there had been no mine under the Maine, they 
u-ould have proven it. But make an issue of it; refer it to some 
board of experts; and what then? No witness could be called 
before that board of experts for Spain except the witnesses Spain 
chose. I acquit, as did the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] 
yesterday. General Blanco. I have not felt that he could be 
guilty of complicity in it. General Lee has testified that General 
Blanco exhibited the utmost emotion: that he wept when it oc- 
curred. 

But, Mr. President, the testimony taken was utterly inconse- 
quential; the report of the same qualitv. Thev dispose of the case 
by showing that other ships had exploded, that there were no dead 
fish to be found, was no hole under the ship, and no wave at the time 



47 

of explosion. One can not read the testimony, consider what is 
shown and iHtat is not s/(ojr?i, witliout being driven to theconclii- 
sion that Spanish hate perpotratt-il that awful, cowardly crime, 
the murder under our tlag in that harbor of the men of the Muinc. 
No; we are not in a position to declare war against Spain. I think, 
on account of the Ala inc. but our Navy must not be blamed if 
flying at every masthead when the ships go into battle is the legend, 
'•Remember the Muijic." 

But what of its relation to intervention? Only this. Mr. Pres- 
ident: It is laid down by!Mr. Hall, and he is quoted with approval 
by the Supreme Court in the Wiborg case, unreported, treating of 
intervention, as follows: 

Interventions for the purpose of self-preserv.ition naturally include all 
those which are prouiided njion dni-.^er to the institutions, to the tjood order, 
or to the external safety of tlie intervening state. 

To some of these uo objection can be offered. 

Now mark this: 

1/ a government is too ire ak to prevent actual at t neks upon a iniijlihni-hn 
its subjects, if it foments revolution abroad, or if it threatens liostilitics 
which may be averted by its overthrow, a menaced state may adopt such 
measures .'is are necessary to obtain sulistantial guaranties for its own se- 
curity. The state which is subjected to intervention has either failed to sat- 
isfy its international duties or has intentionally violated them. It has dona 
or Tiermitted a wrong, to obtain redress for which the intervening st«te may 
maKo war if it chooses. If war occurs the latter may exact as one of the con- 
ditions of peace at the end that a government shall be installed which is able 
and tcilling to observe its international obligations. 

If there were nothing else, this of itself is suflBcient warrant for 
intervention. Acquitting Spain as a sovereignty, and General 
Blanco as her representative, of any comi)licity in the destruction 
of the Maine, the fact remains that under circumstances which 
called for unusual measures of protection, her government in Cuba 
was at least too weak to prevent her subjects from destroying 
our battle ship and murdering our sailors. 

"We can endure it all no longer. 

We intervene, Mr. President, not for conquest, not for aggran- 
dizement, not because of the Monroe doctrine; we intervene for 
humanity's sake; we intervene to gain security for the future; we 
intervene to aid a people who have suffered every form of tyranny 
and who have made a desperate struggle to be free. We intervene 
for our own permanent peace and safety. We intervene upon the 
highest possible ground, Mr. President; and upon this case we 
may. although with the utmost reluctance — for we are a people 
devoted to the arts of peace— go into the war. if it must come, con- 
fidently invoking "the considerate judgment of mankind"' and 
the blessing of Almightv God. 
3:,'73 



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